A Tale of Two Thieves: Escalation
by darthtitan
Summary: Five years after "A Tale of Two Thieves," Lord Voldemort is reborn and enters an unholy alliance with Cudgeon and Koboi that will destabilize both the fairy and wizarding worlds. Can Harry, Holly, and Artemis stop this evil trio? Also features a massive crossover with Bioshock Infinite.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, or Bioshock Infinite. They are owned by Eoin Colfer, J.K. Rowling, and 2K Games (Ken Levine) respectively.**

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 **For those who haven't read the prequel and don't wish to, here's a brief summary:**

 **Harry Potter is an eight-year-old street thief in London; after wizards stumble upon his hiding spot, he panics and accidentally apparates to Ireland, specifically the grove where Artemis is lying in wait for an unsuspecting fairy. Artemis is curious about how Harry suddenly appeared at that spot, so he kidnaps both Harry and Holly, who was performing the Fairy Ritual at the grove at the same time. Thanks to a copy of the Book and a hidden alcove in Fowl Manor that activates due to Harry's presence, Artemis discovers crucial information about the fairy and wizarding civilizations and is able to formulate the perfect plan to extort both groups.**

 **Through a series of circumstances, LEP Commander Root and Albus Dumbledore ally with each other while Briar Cudgeon, Lucius Malfoy, and the Ministry of Magic forge their own alliance. The former group is discredited when their hostage negotiations with Artemis fall apart, with Butler knocking out the combined LEP-Order-of-Phoenix task force. The latter group sends in 2 trolls - a fairy one and a wizarding one. Quirinus Quirrell, who is currently hosting Lord Voldemort's spirit, follows the second troll; seeing that both are handily defeated by our heroes, LV possesses one of the fallen trolls and fights Harry. Harry defeats LV and gains vital information on who he is, along with how LV survived all these years.**

 **Harry and Holly escape afterwards, but Artemis cons Cudgeon and the Ministry into sending him the gold. The LEP imposes a time-stop and sends a bio-bomb to wipe out all living things in Fowl Manor; the wizards add a similar set of black wards. Both are touted as being fool-proof, but Artemis circumvents these measures and survives. So, he gets to keep his gold.**

 **Meanwhile, Dumbledore tries and fails to kidnap Harry and return him to the Dursleys. Distrusting wizards but unable to stay with the fairies, Harry runs off to the Irish streets. Holly returns to the LEP. Fortunately, the two stay in contact via a fairy communicator; Harry also managed to transfer the Fowl Manor alcove to his bag before escaping, so he can train himself in magic.**

 **We pick up five years later...**

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Prologue

The sun set early in Knockturn Alley, and Edwin Burke was closing the shop after yet another prosperous day. Ever since the Potter-Fowl crisis five years ago, business had been booming as even the neutral Pureblood families had begun arming themselves with dark artifacts out of the fear of a pending Muggle invasion. After all, if _Harry Potter_ himself had been kidnapped by the Muggles, who was to say that their precious children, the heirs to their legacies and fortunes, would not be next? Even now, they only had Dumbledore's assurance that the boy was alive and free of Fowl's grasp.

Fowl had successfully become the bogeyman in purebloods' Muggle-horror-stories. "Eat your broccoli, Daphne, or Fowl and his man-mountain will lock you up in the dungeon." "Draco, hold still while I pin these robes, or I swear that I will sell you to Fowl! You know what those Muggles would do to children like you - they would bleed you dry in order to steal your magic." "If you perform underage magic, Fowl will come to your house at night and snatch you from your bed!"

The recession and Goblin rebellion following Fowl's successful extortion scheme had further intensified the paranoia and resentment in pureblood circles. Neutral families such as the Greengrasses had actually joined the Malfoys and other "former" Death Eaters in Muggle-baiting and Muggle-hunting. After eight years of steady decline, the number of attacks on Muggles was once again rising sharply.

The Light tried pinning the blame on Fowl and the Irish alone. They averred that the Irish magical and mundane governments were to blame for hindering the British government's efforts to bring Fowl to justice. They asserted that it was important to blame the right individual for the entire mess; after all, the British Muggles had nothing to do with this situation. But a majority of British wizards could not get past the fact that a mere Muggle - someone who was supposed to be weaker and lower than them - had bested their government, had beaten THEM. Their wounded ego did not allow them to see reason. So, ironically, the Light was actually at an even lower point currently than it had ever been during Voldemort's reign of terror.

But Burke did not care about any of that. As far as Burke was concerned, only profits mattered, and gold was flowing into his pockets as never before. 'At this rate, I can settle down and hand this business off to my nephew in another two years. Merlin knows I've handled this store long enough.'

He was shaken from his musings when the door bell chimed, and a female figure entered the shop.

"Welcome to Borgin & Burke's. Shop's closing - unless, of course, you can give me a good reason to keep it open a bit longer," Burke said pompously.

"I'll need proof that you're a wizard as well - and not one of those Mudbloods either, since my fine establishment can't be seen hosting _their_ kind."

The figure stepped out of the shadows, and Burke was struck by her blue eyes. Burke had only met the Dark Lord himself one time, but he still remembered the way that his red, slitted eyes had a way of staring straight through you and discovering your deepest, darkest secrets, your worst fears. He remembered how even as the Dark Lord thoroughly dissected you, you had no way of escaping that stare - there was something magnetic about it.

This lady's blue eyes had a much stronger effect. Had Burke been a religious man, he would have compared it to being in front of St. Peter in front of the gates of heaven. Those eyes laid his soul bare, and Burke could feel them judging his merits and sins. And Burke, the amoral business-man that he was and had been for his whole life, felt that they found him wanting.

After a seemingly interminable moment, the eyes blinked and looked away, and Burke found that he was able to breathe once again. He took a good look at the lady's face - a young, beautiful lass, probably no older than sixteen. Yet those eyes just did not belong on such a youthful face; from those eyes, he had been expecting someone ancient.

The lady walked towards his shop counter sensuously. Burke's eyes raked over her figure lasciviously, and he unconsciously licked his lips. A trace of disdain flashed through the all-knowing blue eyes.

"Wand, please?" he reiterated.

The woman casually flicked her left arm, and a black wand appeared. She held it up to Burke to inspect.

'Smart girl - knows not to let go of her weapon. That's proper pureblood breeding right there.'

Burke made a show of inspecting the wand; in reality, the woman had already passed his test simply by possessing a wand holster and holding onto her wand during the inspection. Half-bloods and Mudbloods would have removed their wand from their back pant pockets and given it up to him without a second thought. 'Fools.'

"Well, that seems to be in order, miss. How can I help a fine lady such as yourself today?"

The woman cleared her throat and responded, "Yes. You are well-known for collecting rare, powerful artifacts, such as the Hand of Glory. I am partial to jewelry myself, so what do you have in the way of ornaments?"

Burke smiled wolfishly. "Ah, yes, you've come to the right place. We have all manners of...special...jewelry. For example, if I could direct your attention to this wonderful necklace..."

And so, for the next half-hour or so, Burke displayed his vast collection of cursed jewelry to the lady, starting with a necklace that strangled its wearers and culminating with a bottle that could poison any fluids placed into it. Throughout the tour, the lady remained impassive, even when Burke detailed the myriads of horrific ways in which some of the products could kill their owners. 'Definitely has the stomach for it - probably a jilted lover, looking to off her ex. Man was an idiot for giving up someone as ruthless and good-looking as this.'

"This is all well and good, Mr. Burke. But do you happen to have a golden locket, purportedly created by Salazar Slytherin himself?"

Burke froze at that and looked at the lady suspiciously. "As a matter of fact, I used to. Got it off a tramp at a basement price, but it got stolen decades ago. Most valuable piece in my collection too. Where did you hear about it?"

"The 'where' is inconsequential. All that matters is whether or not you still have it in your possession. If not, then can you tell me about when it disappeared - who was working for you, who visited the shop that day, etc.?"

"Listen, madam, I am not responsible if I somehow lost your property. Obviously, you didn't guard it well enough; I didn't know that it was yours, and you're not liable for reimbursement."

The lady brushed off his concerns. "You misunderstand, Mr. Burke. I want to HELP you recover it, so long as we can split the profits. It was...a family heirloom of inestimable value, but now that it has been sullied by others' hands, I simply want to extract as much value as possible."

She paused. "Especially given the economic crises that we've been facing recently."

'Once again, thank you Fowl,' Burke thought.

"How much would you say that this locket would be worth?" Burke asked casually.

"Enough to make Fowl's ransom seem like pocket change."

Burke's greedy eyes lit up, and he scrambled his brain, trying to remember everything he could about the day on which the locket disappeared.

"T'was a busy day - busier than usual. The Wizengamot was debating a series of Muggle-protection acts, and our customers were antsy to buy as much soon-to-be-contraband as possible before they got passed. Back in those days, the worst that the Dark families had to fear was that the government would crack down on imported dark artifacts and that Mudbloods would take over the government. None of this Fowl and Muggle-invasion nonsense."

He continued, "I remember that even around noon, the locket was still in my glass cabinet, in its place of honor. I'd placed all sorts of charms and wards around it - the withering curse, blood-boiling curse, and so on. To further stymie thieves, I had three duplicates of that entire cabinet, locket and all, nearby. I mean, we are talking about a locket created by Salazar Slytherin himself!"

"In the evening, something odd happened - one of the perimeter wards triggered, and I rushed to the main cabinet. No one was there, and the locket seemed fine. But at closing time, the cabinet was smashed, and the locket was gone."

The lady closed her eyes in thought. After a few moments, she asked, "Were there any insects in the area?"

Burke looked at her bemusedly. "Why would that -"

"Please answer the question, Mr. Burke. It could be vital to figuring out how your locket was stolen."

"Yeah, a dead cockroach, nothing more. I had my assistant, Riddle clean it up immediately. Can't give customers a bad impression after all."

"Wait, your assistant was Tom Riddle?" the woman interrupted sharply but knowingly; it was almost as though she was confirming a suspicion.

"Yes. How do you -"

"Did your wards guard against animagi by any chance?"

"Of course they did! Anyway, I'm pretty sure that I would have seen a bloody dog or moose barrel through the front door and smash the cabinet."

"How about cockroaches?"

Burke paled. Of course! He had never considered the possibility of an insect animagus. "So, you're saying that the dead cockroach was..."

"An insect animagus. And a mere distraction - the perpetrator knew that you would rush to the right cabinet and true article in the event of a breach."

"And Tom helped me reinforce those wards - I turned to him because he was bloody brilliant at warding and well, everything," Burke whispered, his face ashen.

"Precisely." The woman's lips curved upwards.

Burke pounded on his sales desk furiously. "The bloody, no-good Mudblood! I gave him a job. I -"

"Now, now, Mr. Burke," the woman said condescendingly. "I'm sure that Lord Voldemort would most displeased were to hear you speak so poorly of him."

Burke flinched at the name. "The Dark Lord? What does he have to do with Riddle?"

"Everything. Your bloody 'Dark Lord', the so-called champion of the pure-bloods, is an arrant hypocrite. Lord Voldemort is clearly an anagram of 'Tom Marvolo Riddle'. Obviously, you wizards don't have the brain-cells to recognize such a childish play of words."

Burke bristled. He'd been mistaken - even if this woman was a pure-blood, she was one of those bloody Light-siders. "That's it - get out of my shop. We don't serve your kind here," he sneered.

The woman merely stared at him coolly.

Burke pulled out his wand. "Get out of my shop, yer tramp. I don't know what your game is, but I will curse the daylights out of you if you don't leave."

"Do try."

Burke was starting to feel afraid. Back in the day, he had built a reputation as an accomplished duelist; it was a part of the reason that even his darkest customers dared not attack him. His reputation had also been a great stimulant for the business as dark-siders throughout Europe clamored to buy products from the Terminator.

It was possible that this woman was just ignorant. Those all-knowing blue eyes belied that possibility.

'A Cruciatus should get her scampering out here. Or maybe an Imperio - I could have fun with her,' he thought spitefully.

But before he could lift his arm to begin the necessary spell movements, Burke heard the loud sound of a - what were those Muggle things? brills, krills? no, drills - revving on behind him.

"What -"

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Burke. You should have picked your acquaintances and business partners more carefully," the woman said coldly, blue eyes weighing him mercilessly.

BRRRRRRR!

Burke screamed as a drill burrowed straight through his chest, just below his heart. As a haze of pain filled his head, he heard a loud roar, and his body was picked up and flung into the air. He crashed into the pile of jewelry that he had been showing to the woman.

Gasping and struggling to get up despite the massive blood loss - there was frigging hole in his chest -, he froze in horror at the sight before him.

A green glowing-helmeted...thing...stood before him, with a bloody drill in one hand and a gun in the other.

"Mr. Bubbles, would you kindly dispose of this refuse?"

With mounting horror, Burke watched the thing lumber towards him. It let out load moans as it came to a stop before his broken body. For a moment, Burke dared to hope that those moans signified remorse or reluctance.

His hopes were promptly dashed as the thing's green lights changed to red, and it roared.

The last thing that Burke saw in this world was a Muggle drill crashing down on his head and burrowing through his skull full-force.

* * *

Elizabeth watched the entire process dispassionately. She watched the Big Daddy completely eviscerate Burke beyond recognition, throwing different parts of his body around the room. She watched the Big Daddy let loose a victorious roar afterwards. She watched it calm down and stroll back towards the tear, which lead back to Rapture. Back to where its Little Sisters were.

She picked up Burke's wand from the spot that he had dropped it when the Big Daddy had launched its surprise attack.

"Good riddance, Fink."


	2. Chapter 1: Mr Potter, I Presume?

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in the following chapter.**

Chapter 1 - Mr. Potter, I Presume?

"Ignore the tour guides, and listen to Uncle Foaly instead. Did you know that the Great Chain was actually destroyed by some guy called Ezio Auditore as he -"

"Foaly, focus," Harry said as he casually swiveled his head, attempting to pick out the target from the masses swarming into the Grand Bazaar.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you don't have the Eagle Sense that he supposedly had. That would make your job a lot easier."

"Foaly, I don't have time for your urban myths. You know how important this is. It took us six months to get this lead."

Tuning out Foaly's grumbling, Harry returned his focus to reconnaissance. His task was complicated by the fact that Istanbul's Grand Bazaar was a hotspot for both mundanes and wizards. For the former, the Bazaar was the oldest shopping mall in the world and a fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. For the latter, the Bazaar was also the only place in the world where mundane and wizarding shops literally coexisted side-by-side (or in some cases, on top of one another).

Elsewhere in the world, wizarding shopping districts were strictly separated from their mundane counterparts. For example, Diagon Alley was enclosed within a pocket dimension in downtown London, and Paris' Marche Prospere lay within a hidden set of tunnels built during WWII. Wondrous as these districts were in and of themselves, the Grand Bazaar was the only place in the world where one could see the latest wizarding brooms being sold alongside the latest cell phones and video games.

Harry's left eye twitched as he passed the broom shop.

"Nuh-huh, you are not wasting time at that broom shop, Harry. I mean, if you don't have the time to listen to my 'urban myths,' then you certainly don't have time to ogle brooms. Besides, it's not like you actually need them to fly anymore. Keep marching, soldier."

Harry whined, "But Mom, I just want one to study the magics they've used. You know, for scientific purposes, Mr-LEP's-Research-Specialist-and-Resident-Hacker."

"Need I remind of you this operation's high-stakes, Harry?"

Harry sobered quickly at that. 'He's right; I need to focus. I have to keep a close eye out for the mark and the right opportunity, especially since I can't start anything in here, unless I want to spend the next decade in Turkish prison.'

The Grand Bazaar's unique amalgamation of the mundane and wizarding worlds was made possible in large part by its complex warding scheme, which were analogous to a system of CCTV cameras and a highly-trained security team. When wizards entered the market, the wards recorded both their face and wand signature. Afterwards, they tracked each and every spell they cast, and the authorities were promptly summoned when the spells became combative. The wards would also promptly lock in the perpetrator(s) in that situation, preventing them from leaving the district.

As Harry brushed past a carpet merchant, he finally saw his quarry - a shabbily-dressed, twitching wizard whose eyes were frantically scanning the crowd. Harry quickly ducked before the wizard could spot him and considered his options.

"All right, Harry, that's Mundungus Fletcher. He may be a dishonest, flea-ridden mongrel, but he's still a skilled thief. What's the play?"

"A distraction of some sort. I could strike during the ensuing chaos, and Fletcher won't think to check until much later. Of course, a poison dart would be the simplest option, but I don't want to actually kill the mangy mongrel."

"Ok, sounds good, Agent 47."

"Foaly, you've been playing way too many video games recently. And you're not hot enough to be Diane Burnwood."

"I blame Hollywood. And quit being racist/sexist - I am a very handsome centaur, if you must know."

Harry rolled his eyes and casually strolled towards Fletcher. Ducking his head, he discreetly dropped a smoke bomb and rapidly retreated from the drop site.

He counted down to thirty and wasn't disappointed when the bomb detonated, clouds of smoke poured out, and the crowds began panicking. Fortunately, Harry and Foaly had modified his glasses using a combination of runes and technology to see through the opaque smoke, so Harry did not lose sight of the panicking Fletcher. A similar set of runes on his robes' cowl ensured that a breathing mask would cover his face in the presence of foreign gases.

So, a hooded, masked Harry Potter briskly entered the cloud of smoke and the hysterical crowd around Fletcher. As he approached the coughing man, Fletcher looked up in shock. But there was no time to respond as Harry quickly fired his hidden Neutrino and stunned the man. 'Didn't use Stunning Spells or any magic at all, other than my runes, so the wizarding authorities won't have a clue until much later,' Harry thought smugly.

After a minute or two, Harry had found the target object - a golden locket with a serpentine S carved on its surface. Harry gritted his teeth in pain as a spike shot through his scar. After taking a deep breath and slamming down this Occlumency shields though, he regained control and shoved the locket into one of the pockets in his robes. Without any further ado, the teen stood up and walked out of the crowd coughing and crouching just like his neighbors, his mask vanishing as though it had never been there.

Two minutes later, Harry was out of the Grand Bazaar, walking away coolly as though he was just another tourist, and nothing untoward had occurred in the past few minutes.

"Nicely done, Harry," Foaly's voice came through his earpiece appreciatively.

"With your help," Harry responded modestly. On the side, he quickly reviewed of the Horcrux situation - 3 down (the diary, ring, and diadem), 1 in progress (the locket), and 1 to go (the cup).

'And last but not least, the one in my scar,' Harry forced himself to acknowledge mentally. Despite his best efforts, he had not been able to discover a way to safely extract it during the last five years. He had even consulted with reclusive Hindu and Buddhist sages meditating in the Himalayas (since they were widely recognized as the world's experts on soul magics, even if it was a pain to track them down and gain their audience), but so far, the only solution appeared to be... _to destroy the vessel_.

Harry valued his life, thank you very much; there HAD to be another way. He was sure of it. Of course, it might be helpful to confide in Foaly and Holly about that particular Horcrux at some point, but Harry wanted to put that off for as long as possible. Superficially, he reassured himself that it was simply because he didn't want to worry them unnecessarily, but deep down, he knew that he didn't want them to view him with disgust.

Or worse - _pity._

Fortunately, our young hero had to cut short his increasingly gloomy reflections at that moment as his collar heated up just enough to sting his neck; instinctively, he ducked, and his eyes caught sight of small blur flashing past the spot his head had just occupied mere moments ago. Not for the first time, he thanked the shielding runes that had been painstakingly engraved all over his robes.

"D'Arvit," he cursed upon seeing the tall, armored woman with blue hair tied back in a ponytail. The lady was already reloading her sniper rifle.

"D'Arvit indeed," Foaly agreed. "It's the WidowMaker. Malfoy must still be unhappy about how you burned down his manor."

Harry snorted. "He shouldn't have safeguarded one of Voldie's Horcruxes then. Anyway, I wanted to just grab the diary and run. It was Dobby's idea to Fiendfyre the whole place. And you agreed!"

"Less talking, more running!" Foaly snapped as another dart exploded past Harry's head and shattered one of the vases nearby.

As the surrounding crowd panicked, the WidowMaker fired her grappling hook at the roof above a closer stall and rocketed over to it, firing shots at Harry with an assault rifle at the same time. Harry quickly traced a redirection rune in the air and willed the incoming pellets to return to their sender.

The WidowMaker's eyes widened in surprise as her bullets rebounded, and she barely avoided being hit by leaping backwards acrobatically.

Harry used the opportunity to go on the offense. Stroking the elemental runes on his robes' sleeves, Harry threw fire balls at the assassin, who gracefully dodged each one of them like a ballet dancer.

'You know, if it weren't for the fact that she's tried to kill me three times, I would seriously consider dating her. Well, that and if she were a few years younger,' Harry thought grimly. 'Wait, am I actually checking her out right now? Bloody hormones. This was so not a problem last year.'

Apparently having decided that she was done dodging, the WidowMaker jumped off the roof and landed right in front of Harry. She retracted her hidden blade and lunged at the teen, but Harry dissolved into shadowy mist, much like the smoke from the smoke bomb earlier. The mist reshaped itself into a serpentine form and wrapped sinuously around the assassin, but the assassin simply sneered and pressed a button on her utility belt. Bolts of electricity instantly sparked through her armor, dispelling the mist and throwing Harry back into a nearby wall.

Shaking his head (and thanking Foaly for the sturdy armor under his robes, not that he would ever say so to Foaly's face since the arrogant centaur did not need a massive ego boost) to clear the ringing, Harry rolled to avoid the flurry of incoming pellets. 'She's trying to just stun me. Well, that is an improvement over last time, when she was using flamethrowers and rocket launchers. What's with the change?'

"WidowMaker, well met. Why don't we lay down our weapons and go out for some coffee? From what I've heard -"

Harry narrowly dodged a round of bullets. "Oh, no more tranquilizer darts. What happened? Is my voice that annoying?"

The WidowMaker snarled and threw her grappling hook at Harry, hoping to snare and reel him in.

Harry turned intangible and let the hook's claws pass right through him. He stroked the elemental runes again and channeled as much magical lightning as possible from his fingertips to the hook's metal cable.

The WidowMaker's eyes widened in shock, but it was too late - the lightning quickly traveled along the length of the cable back to its source.

With a gut-wrenching scream, the WidowMaker fell to the ground on her knees as the magical lightning overloaded her armor, causing the electronics to smoke and burst into loud explosions with bright flashes. The WidowMaker's appearance also kept fizzling, almost like the reception on a bad TV until her glamors were completely dispelled.

Harry whistled. 'Whoa, so that's what she really looks like. Don't see why she needs glamors though.'

The exhausted blonde glared at her opponent darkly. Pressing a button on her belt (probably the only function that still worked on her armor), she ejected herself from the armor. A wand slipped into her hand, and she began rapidly firing spells at Harry, attempting to hold him off.

Harry's patience had worn thin though. He stood his ground and absorbed the spells in the palm of his hand; he slowly merged them all into a single solid mass and threw the ball back at the WidowMaker.

The WidowMaker had seen this particular attack before though from her previous encounters with Harry and countered with a powerful Shield charm. The shield turned dark red, and a gong-like sound emanated when the ball collided with it, but it held nonetheless.

"Donmak! Freeze! Hold you hands up!"

The pair momentarily looked away from each other and turned to the Turkish authorities surrounding them. They could both feel anti-Apparition wards go up simultaneously.

With a contemptuous sneer, the WidowMaker took out a stick from her robe pocket and enlarged it to reveal a broom. She concurrently threw down a smoke bomb and used the ensuing chaos to mount the broom and fly off.

Back in the bad old days, Harry had used a similar tactic many times using his trusty Nimbus or a pair of Double-Dex wings, but nothing could quite compare to the speed and unadulterated thrill of unassisted flight. So, he concentrated on the latent chakras on his feet and directed magic there; runes engraved inside the boot activated upon detecting the sudden increase in ambient magical concentration, and a burst of concentrated air and fire burst out of the boots' soles. Harry rocketed out of the smoke-filled area, in close pursuit of the fleeing assassin.

"Foaly, any hits on the WidowMaker's identity from my iris-cam footage?"

Foaly scoffed in Harry's earpiece. "Of course, I ran the facial recognition search as soon as her glamors dropped. She's Fleur Delacour, daughter of the French Head of the Department of Magical Enforcement. I wonder what law-abiding daddy's going to say about his bounty-hunting, assassin daughter."

"Thanks, Foaly. I'll be in touch," Harry replied tersely.

Harry saw Fleur's head turn back to take stock of the situation; he felt grim satisfaction as her eyes widened upon seeing her pursuer rapidly gaining on her. 'Hah! I love these boots. Beat that, Nimbus."

Fleur flattened her body against the broom and urged it onwards. She took a sharp turn to the left and passed through two windows of the Grand Bazaar while shoppers continued on obliviously below her. Swearing since he was going too fast to make the turn safely, Harry made a more gradual turn while raising his elevation. Consequently, when Fleur exited the Grand Bazaar and reentered the surrounding rooftop area, he saw the action from a bird's eye view.

Swooping down like a hawk would on a mouse, Harry narrowly managed to grab hold of the Firebolt's bristles. Startled, a snarling Fleur spun her broom in midair in an effort to shake him off, but he held on stubbornly.

As they exited the Grand Bazaar's rooftop area, any remaining Muggle-repelling charms were dispelled, and suddenly, everyone on the area saw an unusually beautiful, snarling lady flying on a broom like the witches of legend and trying to shake off an unwanted, black-haired passenger.

"Um, Harry, I know the situation is bad enough as it is, but I'd estimate that you have 5 minutes before the wizarding authorities arrive and start firing spells at both of you."

"D'Arvit!" Harry swore, his curse easily lost amidst the howling wind around him. Foaly could easily shut up the mundanes since they actually used technology. Against the technophobic wizards though, Harry was all on his own.

'Time to end this,' Harry thought grimly. He visualized a bubble surrounding the broom and cried, "Finite Incantatem."

Nothing happened.

'Wow, I really need to get my hands on a Firebolt! Unlike my Nimbus, it's actually curse-proof, as advertised! Oh well, time for Plan B...'

Harry summoned a LEP sticky-pouch-paint-bomb from his coat pockets and stuck it to the broom. He promptly let go and entered free-fall.

Fleur shrieked as the bomb exploded and splattered red paint all over her suit, simultaneously throwing her off the broom through its propulsive force.

Thinking quickly, Harry detached a hook from his armor's moonbelt, summoned Fleur, and attached it to her body. He then reoriented himself so that his feet were facing downwards and directed as much magic as he could to the chakras in his feet and hands. He focused on shaping the energy into concentrated air-and-fire blasts.

To be safe, he also activated the backup pair of Double-Dex wings hidden inside his trenchcoat, something that Holly had always insisted that he wear ever since he had started these field missions. He had never been more grateful for them, even if they did rip up his favorite coat as the previously retracted wings shot out.

They made it - barely. The pair slowed down to a gentle hover a few feet above balcony of a nearby minaret, and Harry disabled his air-fire bursts and Double-Dex wings. They landed on their feet, and Harry promptly detached Fleur from his Moonbelt, backing away from the shaken assassin with raised palms.

Harry began warily, "Fleur -"

A fist came crashing into his jaw, knocking him to the ground on his back.

"Sale _petite merde! Je te tuerais, sale anglais!"_

A steady stream of French curses followed as a boot crashed into his sternum, and Fleur's hands promptly wrapped around his neck. Black spots colored his vision as he heard Fleur hiss, "I was told to bring you and the locket in alive. But it doesn't matter now; I won't suffer the disgrace of being beaten by a thirteen-year old boy."

Losing consciousness rapidly, Harry swung his fist up at her face in desperation, and a chunk of earth rocketed upwards and knocked Fleur back.

Gasping and savoring the flow of fresh air, Harry stood up. 'How - oh right, the elemental runes. Guess I forgot to turn them off earlier.' He stroked the rune again, and it died down. Harry instantly felt the weight of the magical energy that he had expended. 'Pay now, or pay later, I guess. And with runes, it's definitely a case of I'm-not-waking-up-before-noon-tomorrow.'

"Harry, are you ok?" Foaly's voice called out frantically in his earpiece.

Gritting his teeth, Harry responded, "As fine as I could be considering that I was just involved in a high-speed pursuit across the rooftops of Istanbul. Where am I now?"

He heard typing on the keyboard before Foaly responded, "The balcony of one of the minarets of Hagia Sophia. What is it with you and tourist destinations?"

Harry snorted and went over to check on Fleur. "She's out cold. I can bring her in, if you want, especially since that armor was definitely of fairy make."

"Good idea. I've been hoping to ask her a few questions about that armor ever since her first appearance. You still have the -"

"Yeah, I do, Foaly," Harry said after quickly checking his robe pockets.

"Good, flyboy. Now, get back to the safehouse." Foaly said seriously.

"G'night, Foaly," Harry said wearily as he tied up Fleur's hands using the LEP's handcuffs. Normally, he would have just Apparated her straight to the safehouse, but as tired as he was, he didn't want to risk it. So, instead, he tied her to his moonbelt, activated his DoubleDex wings, and flew her back to his safehouse.

Taking out her wand from his robes, he hastily cast an "Incarcerous" to doubly ensure that she couldn't escape from the chair. Turning away, the bleary-eyed Harry was all set to go to bed, but he was most surprised to see a willowy, black-haired, blue-eyed woman sitting at his desk instead.

"Mr. Potter, I presume?"

* * *

 **Please read & respond!**

 *** _"Petit morceau de merde! Je te tuerai, Anglais!" -_ French for _"Little piece of shit! I will kill you, Englishman."_**

 *** Skyfall's opening chase sequence inspired this chapter.**

 *** (7/28) Changed Horcrux status delineation.**


	3. Chapter 2: Rebirth and Renewal

Chapter 2: Rebirth and Renewal

 _Four years ago_

After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror gifted out parcels of lands to his chief commanders as a reward for their loyalty and support during the campaign against the Anglo-Saxons. One such commander was Septimus Moreau, who received the land upon which Malfoy Manor would later be constructed. His chief lieutenant was one Domenicus Malfoy, the eldest in a family of seven.

As the first and only wizard in his family, Domenicus was disqualified from inheriting the family lands since the practice of primogeniture had a hidden complement: magicians could not own land. Feudal lords had carefully devised that law so as to force magicians to become their serfs, soldiers, or priests; since landholding was the ultimate status symbol in those days and the few skilled/well-trained magicians that rose every so often generally tended to go on bloody rampages against mundanes, feudal lords were desperate to keep magicians and their dangerous powers under their thumbs. The only exceptions were the Potter, Longbottom, and Moreau families, who had all been gifted many titles and estates from Charles Martel (ancestor of the esteemed Charlemagne) for their support against the Moors' invasion of France.

So, Domenicus had elected to serve in Moreau's armies and had distinguished himself thoroughly as a ruthless strategic genius in the Normans' campaign; many widely recognized his brilliance and expected Moreau to appoint him as his chief advisor and proxy as a reward for his efforts. Unfortunately, the rank-and-file hated the man for being a martinet and a haughty aristocrat who expected them to bow and grovel slavishly whenever he passed by.

Furthermore, the Potter and Longbottom family heads, who were Moreau's fellow commanders and peers in William's Inner Circle, protested against Domenicus' appointment due to his status as a muggle-born; they reasoned that he was bound to be less experienced than a pure-blooded magician, who would have grown up with magic and therefore wouldn't have any conflicting ties to the mundanes.

Consequently, to Domenicus' immense shock and consternation, Moreau appointed Aramis Wesley, a pure-blood from a vassal family to the Potters, to the chief-advisor post.

Contrary to expectations, Domenicus bore the insult with surprising grace and equanimity in public; he congratulated Wesley on his success in obtaining the post and renewed his pledges of loyalty to Moreau. Behind closed doors though, he and his wife conspired to usurp the fiefdom and claim their due.

Their chance came when Moreau and Guinevere Wesley, Aramis' younger sister and a Squib, fell in love; the Wesleys immediately accepted Moreau's offer for their daughter's hand since this was a unique opportunity to wed their way into a higher social status, specifically one of the core magical noble lines itself. However, things took a tragic turn when Guinevere's dead body was found in the woods near Moreau Manor just a few days before the wedding.

Magical investigators sponsored by the Potters quickly identified the cause-of-death as an Avada-Kevadra but weren't able to pinpoint the casting wand, even after a thorough examination of Moreau Manor and the nearby barracks' inhabitants. Domenicus used what little coin he had to entice the local drunks to start a rumor about how Aramis was committing incest with his own sister and was jealous about losing her to Moreau. To stir the pot further, he also "misplaced" a letter from Aramis that begged him to convince Moreau to cancel the marriage.

Moreau fell for the rumors, hook-line-and-sinker, and performed a search on Aramis' quarters himself; he discovered the spare wand underneath the young Wesley's mattress, and a quick Priori Incantatem confirmed that it was indeed the murder weapon. Aramis was dragged into the dungeons, vehemently protesting his innocence, and somehow word got back to the Wesleys about the latest developments in Guinevere's murder case. The Wesleys protested Aramis' innocence, and when Morea remained unmoved, declared war against his forces.

As Moreau's chief strategist, Domenicus quickly routed the Wesley forces within a year, winning a good deal of approbation from William the Conqueror's Inner Circle for restoring stability within the young Empire. Sadly, in the final battle of the campaign, Moreau and Aramis, who had somehow escaped from Moreau Manor, had slain each other; this left the nominal third-in-command, Domenicus Malfoy, in charge of the Moreau fiefdom, especially since Septimus Moreau was the last living Moreau.

How convenient.

To commemorate his victory, Domenicus demolished Moreau Manor and relocated to the land that would one day house Malfoy Manor; there, he put the conquered Wesley forces to work on the foundations of a veritable fortress, a symbol of his power and might. As for the Wesleys themselves, Domenicus stripped them of all of their vassal titles and noble privileges, effectively reducing them to serfs; he consigned them to a poor patch of land, and in a fit of spite, renamed them "Weasleys." Unlike regular serfs, the Weasleys had to surrender their entire earnings or crops to Domenicus, which trapped them in a cycle of poverty.

The loyal allies that they were, the Potters and Longbottoms protested vehemently against Domenicus' ruthlessness, but Domenicus persuaded William the Conqueror that a harsh example needed to be set so as to dissuade future dissension within the ranks, especially when the Normans were just settling into a newly conquered land.

In short, the Noble and Ancient House of Malfoy and subsequently Malfoy Manor were both born from deceit and murder.

But to the Malfoys, Malfoy Manor was the very embodiment of power. It was used to host foreign dignitaries, Ministry officials, Salazar Slytherin himself, and key figures in the wizarding underworld. The Manor's dungeons were also the wizarding world's only other high-security prison besides Azkaban. Furthermore, successive generations of Malfoys had made their own additions to the Manor's wards, essentially transforming it into an impregnable fortress over the centuries. You would have to be mad to rob Gringotts, but you would have to be suicidal to even approach the Manor with ill-intent.

Or at least that was the consensus until nine-year-old Harry Potter came along.

* * *

It all began with Dobby the house-elf.

Dobby was punishing himself yet again by ironing his fingers when he heard his Master suddenly spew off several epithets. This perked Dobby's curiosity as his Master strove to remain as cool and composed as a cucumber even if it cost him his life; so, Dobby silently watched his Master as he stomped off to his study with a black notebook.

Later on, after the entire family had gone to bed, Dobby snuck into the study and looked at the diary and all nearby documents. Fortunately, Dobby decided to ready the adjacent documents first rather than writing into the diary; Dobby-mort would have been terrifying to say the least. What Dobby read, though, horrified him.

Apparently, Lord Voldemort had bequeathed the diary to Lucius Malfoy at the height of his Death-Eating days as a sign of his trust and the high value that he placed on his "friendship" with the Malfoy family. Lucius still wasn't sure exactly what the diary was but had managed to glean from the Dark Lord (prior to his fall) that it could be used to open the Chamber of Secrets and unleash the Monster within on unsuspecting Muggle-borns in Hogwarts. At the moment, Lucius was attempting to develop a ritual that could point the diary's wrath at an enemy of his choosing but to no avail.

Being a good house-elf (or is it a bad one since he was technically stealing his Master's property?), Dobby created a duplicate of the diary and stashed the original away in Hogwarts' Room of Requirement, specifically the Room of Hidden Things. Poor Dobby had to stick his ears in the oven for that one.

A few months later, Dobby heard his Master break off into a rant once again but about Harry Potter this time. He heard his Master tell Draco and Mistress Narcissa about how he had seen the Dark Lord, how they had conspired to kill the boy off by sending in a pack of trolls, and how the boy had utterly routed both the trolls and the Dark Lord himself.

Now, to the house-elves, Harry Potter was a hero for bringing down the Dark Lord all those years ago; to Dobby especially, the boy was a legend, and Lucius' rants only served to cement the hero-worship. When Lucius mentioned that the Dark Lord had told him that the diary could be used to fuel a resurrection ritual, Dobby was horrified and decided to hand it over to Harry Potter; his hero would know what to do.

Of course, Harry was bemused when a deformed elf (his basis for elves was Holly and Root after all) popped into the library within his backpack, threw a diary onto the floor, and began babbling about his bad Master's plans. But then he took a closer look at the diary.

 _Images of a cup, a locket, a diary, and a crown all flew through his head._

 _The word 'Horcrux' reverberated in his mind._

 _A dead girl lay in front of him, her sightless eyes staring upwards._

 _He felt gut-wrenching pain, makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop..._

 _Then, the pain disappeared, and a rapidly darkening blob was on his wand. He thrust his wand downwards and 'pushed' the blob into the diary on the ground. Now that the pain was gone and the deed was done, He only felt..._

 _Elation. He had taken his first step to immortality. Nothing could stop him now._

Harry wrenched himself away from the memory and back into reality with a grasp. He had stolen the memory from Voldemort's mind while they were battling in Fowl Manor, and he now recognized the seemingly innocent book in front of him as the diary Horcrux.

"Dobby, this...this...is fantastic! Thank you!"

"No need to thank Dobby, Harry Potter sir. Just destroy it so that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named will never return!"

Harry nodded solemnly. "I will. Is there any way that I can repay you?"

Dobby shuffled shyly. "Dobby did not do this for thanks, Harry Potter sir. Dobby did this to prevent evil from returning, and he knows that Harry Potter sir can stop it! But Dobby would be very happy if Harry Potter sir could give bad Master a kick-in-the-arse."

Harry laughed at Dobby's candidness. Then, a thought struck him.

'Wait a minute, Lucius Malfoy - that's the guy who sent those trolls and Quirrell-mort after me at Fowl Manor! Dumbles also said that he was trying to gain custody of me after I escaped with Holly. Hmmm...'

"So, Dobby, what will you do now?"

At that, Dobby's ears drooped, and the house-elf began bashing his head against a nearby bookcase. Harry instantly cast a Stunner at the elf.

He muttered, "Ok, no idea what's going on there. Time to check out some information on house-elves." A few minutes of perusing the library's central grimoire revealed that house-elves were effectively wizards' slaves. Judging by the burns and scars littered throughout Dobby's body, Harry could confidently say that the Malfoys were abusive masters.

Most wizards, or even mundanes for that matter, would not have made the latter observation, but Harry, having been abused severely by the Dursleys and having weathered a harsh life on the streets prior to the Fowl Manor incident, was far more observant in that regard. These experiences also meant that he was extremely sympathetic to Dobby's plight and was determined to get the elf freed; hopefully, his raid on Malfoy Manor would also afford an opportunity for some good old-fashioned revenge.

'I need a place in which I can practice my Fiendfyre and destroy this diary anyway. Might as well be Malfoy Manor.'

So, Harry lifted the stunning spell from the elf and said winningly, "Dobby, what say you about introducing me to Malfoy Manor?"

* * *

There was one glaring hole in Malfoy Manor's (or any other wizarding building's) wards - it did not account for "guests" brought in by the Malfoy house-elves. After all, house-elves were far beneath an average pureblood's notice and were generally treated worse than dirt; even the Weasleys, a poor and admittedly liberal pureblood family, only saw the house-elves as servants at best.

This meant that Dobby was able to teleport Harry from his backpack-library to Malfoy Manor without the Malfoys being any wiser. The only house-elf related defense that the Malfoys had in place was a verbal order to not allow enemies onto the premises.

Harry was simultaneously disgusted and thrilled by the palatial milieu.

Disgusted because he could not understand how people could bear to live in such an extravagant and opulent place, especially while so many others struggled to just make ends meet. Having struggled with severe hunger pangs in the dark, dank cupboard at the Dursleys' and later on the streets, Harry could not justify living in the lap of luxury like this within his own mind. Even if he was a thief, he only stole to survive or exact revenge, no more, no less.

The sheer dark aura emanating from many of the priceless artifacts around the manor only exacerbated Harry's rising nausea.

But Harry was thrilled because the Malfoys had all the more to lose. And he wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over depriving them of these 'treasures' given how horribly they treated their 'inferiors.' Furthermore, the Manor seemed to contain a bulk of their wealth, which meant that stealing/destroying these items would leave them with fewer resources to string along the Ministry and support Lord Voldemort.

So, Harry took a deep breath and spread his magic outwards into a thousand questing threads, studying the various objects and tagging those that had a light or gray aura. With a wrench, he then tugged on the strings and directed the incoming tagged objects into the library within his space-expanded bag.

'There, that should bring me enough money for the base necessities at the very least. Heavens knows that I was running out of supplies in the library and that I can't step foot in Britain without being captured on sight, which means I can't access my vaults at Gringotts.'

(As one of the oldest and wealthiest British magical families, Gringotts' British branch required the family Head to show up in person and claim the family ring before granting access to his vaults, a stipulation that the Ministry of Magic had fully backed after Harry had become the Boy-Who-Lived all those years ago.)

Dobby was hitting his head with a stone bust when Harry interrupted with a sly wink, "Dobby, I'm not an enemy of the Malfoys. As far as you're concerned, I'm just a tourist and art collector."

Dobby paused and brightened. "Of course, sneaky Harry Potter sir! Dobby will play tour guide and show you Master's finest collections."

As the pair frolicked through the mansion, they gathered a growing pile of dark artifacts on the living room floor. Occasionally, Harry would sneak a tome or moving picture (those were totally rad!) into his backpack.

"Well, that's that. Time to burn this dung-heap up," Harry said cheerfully once the "tour" was complete.

Recalling his research into Fiendfyre, he focused on his most intense memories and emotions - hatred for the Dursleys, Achilles, Voldemort, and the Death Eaters; sadness at finding out that his parents had sacrificed their lives to save him from Voldemort; love for his parents and for his surrogate mother/sister, Holly; respect and warmth for Foaly, who he was becoming fast friends with; and determination to see Voldemort fall and to ensure that others wouldn't suffer like he had.

He felt a flame spark up in his stomach, and breathing in and out deeply, he carefully drew upon it and directed it upwards, towards his arms. Concurrently, he moved his arms, which started off akimbo, in a circle and thrust them outwards at the end, just as the energy reached his hands.

Green fire burst out of his hands and enveloped the pile of dark artifacts. Harry smiled as the diary shrieked, and black smoke poured out of it.

'One Horcrux down.'

Repeating the same process as before but in reverse, Harry focused on nothingness - the Void - in order to dispel the flame in his stomach; slowly, the fire-energy pathway from his stomach to his hands died out, and his hands no longer emitted any fire.

But the fire around the dark artifacts did not burn out; instead, it expanded, forming chimeras, phoenixes, house-elves, and many other shapes. Panicking, Harry reached out with his aura and attempted to tag these flaming creatures with threads so as to broadcast his will, but Dobby interrupted him.

"Oooh, Harry Potter sir, let the flames continue. Bad Master said he would burn this place before letting any supporter of the Light inside. Dobby is a good house-elf and follows his order by letting Harry Potter sir burn this place to the ground."

Choking back a laugh, Harry relaxed and pulled back the threads. "All right, Dobby," he said cheerfully, "we'll let it burn, hehe."

Sobering up quickly, he added, "Now, about getting you some clothes..."

* * *

The Malfoys had been attending the annual Christmas gala at the Ministry, which was usually a prime time for doling out bribes and pushing forth pureblood agendas. This year's gala had been especially important since Fudge had just been kicked out of office last year for his mismanagement of the Fowl Incident, so Lucius had to ingratiate himself with the new Minister, Rufus Scrimegour, and secure his good graces. Unlike Fudge, Scrimegour was at least partially competent, as evinced by his stint as the Head of the Auror office, so this process was much harder. Fortunately, the gala had proven that the Malfoys still had the golden touch when it came to managing politicians.

As the party died down, Lucius was satisfied that Narcissa could handle the few remaining Ministry officials and reinforce their message one final time, so he decided to get back to the Manor; some of his fellow (former) Death Eaters had surreptitiously passed along "gifts," knowing that Malfoy Manor was an impregnable fortress, and he wanted to move them to safety as quickly as possible.

As he stepped into the Ministry fireplace, he noticed that Draco appeared to be enjoying himself; hopefully, the boy had gleaned a few lessons from his parents' interactions tonight. After all, someday _he_ would be the one who was securing Malfoy interests at the Ministry.

All of these thoughts came to an abrupt halt as the Floo deposited Lucius at the Manor's fireplace.

"What the blazes is going on here?!" he roared, stunned by the sight of the roaring flames that were eating away at his beloved Manor and precious possessions.

"Hi, Lucy! Here, catch!"

Lucius sputtered as a black-haired boy - Merlin, that looked like a young James Potter! - tossed a cozy sweater at him; still shocked by the Fiendfyre around him, he did not get out of the way in time, and the Geminio rune on the sweater activated upon contact, creating ten duplicates.

"We is free!"

Spluttering, Lucius stumbled away from the sweaters, all of which had been caught by one of the many abused Malfoy house-elves. Unfortunately, Harry took this time to banish a laundry-basket's worth of clothes at the man, each of which had duplication-upon-contact rune; Lucius quickly collapsed under the strain, and under the pretense of helping the Master get back onto his feet, the remaining Malfoy house-elves swarmed around the body and collected the clothes.

'We is free! We is free!'

Lucius hated those squealing voices. Those creatures...how dare they stand there wrenching clothes off his person with their filthy little hands while their master's house was burning?!

Casting off multiple deadly hexes, Lucius clambered back onto his feet with a snarl; he managed to hit two of the newly freed, fleeing house-elves with a strangulation curse but missed all other shots.

Harry gave the man a mocking bow before disappearing with a loud 'POP!', which was quickly echoed by that of the other elves.

"Bugger!" Lucius swore. The Apparition wards were down, which meant that the Fiendfyre had reached the Manor's ward matrix. This meant that they only had a few minutes left to get out.

Turning back to face the fireplace, Lucius braced himself for the arrival of an unsuspecting Narcissa and Draco. He might not be able to save his Manor, but he could save his wife and Heir.

As the two came tumbling out of the Floo, Lucius spun with them and apparated out. Just in time too - the Manor exploded, and the bricks and mortar were completely reduced to ash only a few seconds later.

For all their ambition and cunning, the Malfoys had only prepared for external attacks; Malfoy Manor had not been prepared for an attack from within. After all, it was preposterous to imagine that anyone with ill intent would be able to get inside in the first place, right?

* * *

Standing in the manor grounds, with his wife and son huddled behind him shivering in the cold of the night, Lucius stared at the ashes of his beloved manor, the pride and joy of the Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy.

He still had a considerable amount of financial resources; the Malfoy vaults at Gringotts were nothing to sneeze at. But it was neither enough to rebuild the Manor to its former glory, nor enough to support his intelligence and infiltration network at its current scale. Hell, he didn't even have any bloody house elves left.

Many former Death Eaters, much like himself before he had met Quirrell, were content with their current lot in life and had no wish to return to the days of groveling at the Dark Lord's feet; all it brought them was excruciating pain and humiliation at the hands of the Dark Lord. At least now, they were respected as noble lords and were creeping their way back into the top posts in the Ministry. Unfortunately, this had been mainly due to Malfoy funds, which would have to be curtailed to account for the recent loss.

In other words, Malfoy's benefactors and fellow Death Eaters would unflinchingly cut him loose in this time of need; they certainly supported the cause, but like any true Slytherin, personal wealth and power came first. Without the Dark Lord to unite them (at least in fear), this was truer than ever. If anything, Malfoy's fall gave them a chance to fill the power-broker vacuum. The loss of their valuables, which Malfoy had held in safekeeping within the Manor, would only exacerbate future relations.

'Mark my words, Potter,' Lucius thought, 'you will rue the day that you messed with the Malfoys. You will meet the same sticky end as your Mudblood-loving parents.'

"I can help you with that."

Lucius whipped around with his wand pointed straight at the heart of the speaker.

The speaker, who was half his height and covered in dark robes, was clearly amused by his reaction. "Excellent reflexes. But your wand won't be of any use against me, I'm afraid. You can put it away."

Lucius sneered. "And who are you to command me in such a manner? Do you realize who you are dealing with?"

"Who you are is of little consequence, especially since your - ahem - baby is currently burning in the background at the moment. Your power and influence have never been at a lower point. If the Dark Lord were to return now, he might well eliminate you for your loss of the diary, given that your fellow Death Eaters can serve as far more effective power-brokers at this point."

She paused to allow the man to absorb her words.

"Go on," Lucius said through gritted teeth.

"I can put you in touch with the Dark Lord - oh yes, he survives; he is a far more powerful wizard than you ever gave him credit for - and several like-minded individuals. Alone, you and the Dark Lord will not be able to touch Harry Potter, but with these individuals' help and my special skills, you can have your revenge."

"And what are your special skills?"

"Foreknowledge."

A shiver passed through Lucius' spine. "So it's true then? There is a prophecy about Potter and the Dark Lord."

The lady inclined her head slightly. "I'm sure that a smart man like you can guess what it says. For your edification though,"

" _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..._ "

Lucius considered the words carefully. "I assume that you have already informed the Dark Lord?"

She nodded.

"In that case, what is your stake in all this? If you won't divulge your identity to us, we require some proof that you are invested in our success."

Lucius could not see the lady's face; her cloak's hood completely obscured it, and the lady herself seemed to be one with the darkness of the night. But he got the impression that she was snarling like a wolf.

Pulling back the sleeves of her cloak, the lady held up her hands, one of which showed intense scarring (almost as though she had been burned by the Fiendfyre currently raging behind him).

There was only a stump in place of the other one.

"I admit, I don't care about Potter himself, but one of his allies - or rather, someone who will ally herself with him in the future - was responsible for this. _I want her to pay._ "

Lucius considered that piece of information carefully and shrugged.

"Very well. Take me to the Dark Lord, so that we may commence this alliance."

"Gladly."

* * *

 _Riddle Manor, 2 years ago_

"Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son."

Tom Riddle Senior's bones fell into the mess in the bubbling cauldron.

"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master."

Peter Pettigrew lay on the floor, writhing in pain and holding the stump where his left arm used to be close to his chest.

"Heart of the daughter, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your father."

The lady in dark robes paused for a moment. Nodding briefly at Lucius, she plunged the dirk into her chest - straight into her heart. As she lay dying on the ground, she rasped to Lucius, "Take my heart out, and throw it into the cauldron, so that the Dark Lord will have full access to my memories and abilities."

Nodding, Lucius removed the dirk and began the process of carving out the woman's heart. Were it not for his desire to obtain revenge against Potter...well, he wouldn't have come a mile near this bloody, uncivilized affair.

Once he was done, he tossed the heart into the cauldron. He watched with mounting anticipation as the mix began to stew and bubble.

A bald, snake-like figure rose out of the mix smoothly and gracefully. As it took its first step out of the cauldron, it opened its red eyes and smiled.

Lord Voldemort had risen.

* * *

"My Lord, it is truly good to see you up and about again. I live to serve."

"Thank you, Luciussss. We are glad to see that you have remained loyal to ussss, unlike dear Peter. But Peter has paid sufficiently now, hm? What do you think Peter?"

The rat Animagus whimpered in fear.

Fortunately for Peter, Lucius intervened. "My lord, should we not summon the Death Eaters? Get the old group back together?"

"Patience, Lucius. I know that you want your revenge against Potter. Do remember that I spent years as something less than a shadow, less than even the meanest ghost, because of that boy. But I need some time to assimilate these abilities that my 'daughter' has bequeathed to me."

"Ah, her gift of foresight."

Lord Voldemort chuckled. "Yes, her 'divination.' Except I can see far more clearly than even the most advanced Seers. I can see a sea of lighthouses, each of which represents a possibility. All we need to do is to chain together the right sequence of possibilities to reach our desired outcome."

"My lord, if you don't mind my asking, who was her mother? I was not aware that you were married."

Or that the man was even capable of such emotion.

Even Pettigrew ceased his whimpers at that question.

Lord Voldemort raised an eyebrow. "Why, Luciussss, you seem very invested in matters above your station. Perhaps I should remind you of your place with a dose of reality for precious Narcissa. And I have yet to meet your heir, Draco - I'm sure that he and I will get along _splendidly_."

Lucius gulped.

"But I am generous and forgiving lord, Lucius. To answer your question - no, I have never been married, and I have never engaged in carnal relations. Ergo, our dead ally was not my _physical_ daughter."

Lucius couldn't resist probing, "But if that is the case, then how did the ritual work?"

Lord Voldemort merely stared at Lucius, and his dark aura intensified nearly a hundred times over. Lucius couldn't breath, he felt like he was swimming underwater, _Malfoy Manor was burning again, he had failed the Malfoy name, his father was sneering down at him and calling him an utter disgrace and a fool._

Then, suddenly, Lucius was staring at the cold, hard ground and was back in the cemetery at Riddle Manor again.

"Get up, Lucius," the Dark Lord hissed.

Lucius got up, limbs shaking from the ordeal and sweat pouring down his face. "What...what..was that?" he inquired shakily.

"Merely a taste of what awaits you if you push your luck. You are my humble servant, Lucius, and nothing more. I have humored your curiosity long enough, especially given the fact that you have lost my diary. Were it not for my daughter's contribution to my rebirth, I would have simply left you like that. Now come - introduce me to our allies. A face-to-face meeting is long overdue."

* * *

 _Riddle Manor, Present_

Since then, Voldemort and Cudgeon had corresponded via a holo-communicator that had been altered to support magical inteference. They hammered out a plan to capture Harry Potter and seize control over the mundanes; Cudgeon and Koboi would rule over the People while Voldemort managed the wizards, and the triumvirate would oversee the mundanes.

"Madame Koboi, a pleasure to see you."

Opal giggled, "For a Mudman, you are so courteous, Voldie."

Lord Voldemort twitched at the nickname but gave no other outward sign of irritation or anger. "And for a pixie, you are less flighty than I had expected. Although from what I've heard, Foaly remains the chief technical consultant for the LEP? Such a shame, Opal..."

Opal gritted her teeth at the dig. "Just tell me whether your forces are ready, Mudman."

"They are, Mudblood. I hope that you will use them wisely..."

Opal scoffed. "Listen up, Mudman. I don't know why Briar puts up with so much of your -"

Lord Voldemort merely flicked a finger at Opal's projection and enunciated, "Crucio."

Immediately, Opal began screaming and writhing in pain, blood leaking profusely from her eyes and nose. A smile curved on Lord Voldemort's lips at the sight.

After a few minutes, he lifted the curse and smirked at the panting pixie. "That's why. I trust that you will either show me the proper amount of respect or will direct me to Briar in the future."

Looking at Voldemort hatefully, Opal nonetheless nodded.

"Good. We march at dawn."

* * *

 **FYI (8/5/16)**

 **\- Per a reviewer's advice, I have fixed the sequencing of events in the prequel, "A Tale of Two Thieves." This means that the various "Conversations" that appeared out-of-order in the later chapters should now show up in the appropriate locations in the story.**

 **\- I also revised some of the historical details; specifically, I clarified that the fairy races split into the People (who went underground) and the Surface-Dwellers (who stayed on the surface with the wizards). This split followed the fall of Camelot and is referred to as "The Great Schism." I will include a brief summary of this history at the beginning of the next chapter, where it shall be relevant to the proceedings.**


	4. Chapter 3: Siege

Chapter 3: Siege

At its height, Camelot was the foremost global socioeconomic hub for fairies, wizards, and mundanes; all three factions were not only cognizant of each other but also collaborated closely in various areas, such as metallurgy, science, mathematics, and architecture. For instance, goblins, demon-warlocks, and wizards worked together to develop the foundations of the People's time-stops and the wizards' black wards; Merlin (who was a demon-warlock and human hybrid himself), Viviane (the elf who was otherwise known as the Lady of the Lake), and dwarven King Thorin combined their knowledge and skills to forge King Arthur's fabled weapon, Excalibur. For a while, it appeared that Merlin's dream of integrating the three historically closed and disparate societies would be realized within his own lifetime.

Unfortunately, Morgaine Le Fay and Mordred brought a swift end to that dream. Within a decade, Camelot lay in ruins as the Knights of the Round Table engaged in a civil war that ended with a single survivor (Bedivere), and the mundanes turned against both the wizards and the fairies due to the atrocities that Morgaine Le Fay had committed through her magic. Consequently, as Arthur's death left a power vacuum that only exacerbated the mundanes' civil war, wizards and fairies quietly retreated into the shadows, setting up their own societies away from the mundanes' prying eyes.

The fairies' retreat from mundane society was far more tumultuous than that of the wizards since there was an additional point of contention: whether to retreat underground or not. During the subsequent Great Schism, one group of fairies (the People) chose to completely abandon the surface and set up several colonies below the surface of the Earth while the other (the Surface-Dwellers) stayed on the surface with the wizards.

On one hand, the People retained their autonomy and invested heavily in science and technology until they were centuries ahead of their mundane counterparts; on the other hand, their magical knowledge became heavily diluted over generations. Meanwhile, the Surface-Dwellers, by virtue of their close contact with the wizards, maintained close ties to magic and remained as magically powerful as ever. But, for the most part, they lost their autonomy and were regarded as second-class citizens at best by the wizards.

The elves were one such race among the Surface-Dwellers. Unlike the centaurs, the elves were neither united as a race nor hostile to wizards from the onset. Instead, they were a collective of races, from Wood Elves and Shadow Elves to Water Elves and Stone Elves; only the Earth elves, which previously constituted the largest portion of the elvish race, chose to join the People. Each elvish race had its own culture, laws, and government; for instance, the wood elves possessed a direct democracy given their low population while the shadow and stone elves' political systems were imperial in nature.

Since the Great Schism had left their numbers greatly depleted, the surface-dwelling elves opted to maintain close diplomatic and economic ties with the wizards; this turned out to be their undoing due to their lack of unity. Much like the British East India Company many centuries later, the wizards set up heavily armed trading posts in various elvish territories and aided elvish leaders in their civil wars.

This wasn't as hard as one would imagine since the fall of Camelot and the following Great Schism had completely upended the elvish economy and society; elvish leaders were anxious to ward off civil unrest, so they eagerly distracted the populace through patriotic wars. Of course, these wars were primarily funded through land/trading concessions to wizarding businesses; as elvish numbers rapidly dwindled, wizarding mercenaries also played a more prominent role in these wars.

Ultimately, matters came to a head when the various wizarding mercenaries turned against all of the elves in a stunning coup during the Battle of Plassey; absorbed by their own grueling wars, the various elvish races had long been estranged, so none of their leaders bothered to cross-reference the source of their wizarding mercenaries. Thus, they missed the fact that the wizards' fledgling Ministry of Magic had long since united all of the individual trading posts and mercenary companies under their banner, which in turn led to their complete rout at Plassey.

Consequently, the Ministry of Magic negotiated a harsh treaty with the elvish survivors, whereby they would bind themselves to high-ranking wizarding families in exchange for their continued survival. The binding ritual produced the first house-elves, thereby eliminating the concept of free, surface-dwelling elves for the next millennium.

* * *

Much like the surface-dwelling elves, the People's goblins fell hard and fast after the Great Schism and the subsequent relocation underground.

The surface-dwelling goblins fought several vicious wars against wizards; even though they lost most of these campaigns and were generally relegated to an inferior status within wizarding society, the goblins not only managed to maintain and refine their magical knowledge, especially in the demesnes of warding and metallurgy, but also managed to wrangle several concessions from their opponents, such as a monopoly over their banking system. So, on the whole, the surface-dwelling goblins did relatively well for themselves.

Meanwhile, the People's goblins suffered a series of setbacks from the very beginning itself. Their greatest supporters, the demon warlocks, chose to move into a separate dimension altogether rather than hide underground like the rest of the People. The remaining races that comprised the People opted to base their society on science; they reasoned that magic had led to the fall of Camelot and the Great Schism, so science would become their magic and would allow them to outpace all other groups, above or below the earth. The goblins disagreed, insisting that the People needed BOTH in order to thrive. As arguments between the two camps became more heated, extremists among the goblins advocated for a magic-only approach; eventually, the goblin race broke out into a civil war over the issue.

Within a decade, the extremists had won; it didn't help that the rest of the People were unwilling to get involved in goblin conflicts, especially since they were hard at work on building Haven (the first underground city), reestablishing ties with Atlantis, and developing new modes of transportation. In fact, the first shuttles were just covered and heavily shielded broomsticks; as time went on, the centaurs were instrumental in replacing the shuttles' magical components with pure electronics, if only because the future generations had completely forgotten how to work with more sensitive, convoluted magics. Over time, the People even began blending the history of Camelot with stories of their earlier wars with humans, so their Book increasingly focused on the negative aspects of humanity and neglected those of the People themselves; this process of self-glorification also meant that the People conveniently forgot about wizards and generally viewed "Mudmen" as an inferior and warlike, albeit far more numerous, species.

But back to the subject of goblins - the extremists were stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they didn't want to move back to the surface and risk bleeding out their limited numbers in wars with mundanes or wizards; on the other hand, they also didn't want to adopt the rest of the People's exclusive focus on technology, which was increasingly distancing their race as a whole from the People. So, the extremists divided up into gangs and fought for the limited, underdeveloped areas on the outskirts of Haven; much like the pureblood wizards, they practiced intensive in-breeding and clung to tradition, even as the number of available resources for magical learning dried up due to internecine gang warfare. For example, the goblins' equivalent of the Library of Alexandria, which consisted of many of the major magical works that they had produced during the days of Camelot, was burned down during the first major gang conflict.

Furthermore, by the end of the goblin civil wars, most of the survivors not only belonged to the extremist faction but were also generally the youngest, least magically-experienced goblins; the older, more experienced goblins were more likely to be deployed to the front-lines in the hopes that their arcane magics could somehow yield a massive victory. Thus, it was no surprise that by the turn of the century, the underground goblins' knowledge of magic had dwindled to basic fire spells even as their numbers began to explode once again.

It is also worth mentioning that this rapid fall also meant that the rest of the People viewed the goblins with disdain and contempt. Where they had once been renowned as peerless magicians and warriors, the goblins were now seen as petty criminals, the dregs of society. In fact, Haven's first Council established Howler's Peak as a goblin-only prison purely because they felt that goblins were too stupid and aggressive to house in the underwater environs of Atlantean prisons. Whether or not this was true, the Council set a precedent in that the People began seeing the goblins' stupidity as a hereditary defect rather than a product of history.

This would prove to be their undoing.

* * *

 _Gringotts_

At first glance, it appeared to be business as usual at the Gringotts branch in Diagon Alley.

There were 7 clerks at the front desks, and the lobby continued to be saturated with defensive enchantments and wards. The goblins at the front desk were as taciturn as usual and focused on getting the wizards out of their hair as quickly as possible.

What none of the wizarding clientele could have known was that the goblin warriors who served as the teeth behind the wards were currently busy elsewhere.

Given Gringotts' well-deserved reputation as a veritable stronghold against thieves, one would have to be mad to try to break in; that said, if one were insane enough, now was definitely the best time to pull off a heist.

* * *

 _Howler's Peak_

In the aftermath of the Fowl Affair, massive bank runs had ensued; after all, this was the first time in living memory that humans had kidnapped a fairy and had successfully obtained a huge chunk of gold. Even if war was no longer a possibility by the People's own rules (given that Fowl had outwitted the time-stop), who was to say that other Mud-men would not follow in Fowl's footsteps? The People no longer felt that their gold was safe.

In response, the Council completely overhauled the People's economic structure. There was now a single bank, the Monetary Authority, under the Council's direct control, which housed all of the gold owned by the People. In exchange for bringing in their gold, citizens were awarded the requisite amount of "credits," the new official currency.

While the Council initially contemplated adopting an actual paper currency, Koboi Industries' representatives convinced them otherwise by offering to build the infrastructure for a new digital currency for free. After completing the project in record time, Koboi Industries went above and beyond the call of duty by including an AI that would manipulate liquidity as necessary based on market conditions; a single team in the Monetary Authority would have to initially monitor the AI and train it on a case-by-case basis, but within a few years, it would require little to no organic input.

Of course, amidst this upheaval, the Council had to rework the LEP's priorities. Surface missions had always been risky and expensive, but the Fowl Affair had worsened the People's already-low opinions of Mudmen (magical or otherwise) and fears of a Mudman invasion. As far as the Council and a majority of the People were concerned, now that the economy was finally stabilized once again, it would be best to cut off all contact with humans and the surface altogether. Consequently, the LEP was directed towards collecting any gold still in circulation (against the Monetary Authority's edicts), shutting down dwarven racketeering, and generally maintaining law and order below-ground.

In the process, Recon was downsized significantly, going from several hundred fairies to less than forty. Thanks to Foaly's ACORN project, fairies no longer needed to go above-ground to perform the Ritual and replenish their powers; this allowed the Council to effectively prohibit all fairies from going above-ground, so Recon was reassigned to keeping watch over trolls and guarding shuttle-ports to prevent illegal traffic.

All of this meant that Root would have been out of a job were it discovered that he was using Harry to keep an eye on the surface and had designated Holly and Foaly as the boy's handlers.

Given Recon's severely reduced size, there was no way in hell that Root could have managed to deploy enough forces to handle troll outbreaks, loose cannons, or illicit smugglers; the Council liked to see the effects of its legislation through rose-tinted lenses, so as far as it was concerned, its edict prohibiting all contact with the surface was a resounding success. The reality was that even the LEP's best efforts below-ground couldn't achieve that goal, and it was actually extremely poorly equipped to handle violations at the moment.

Harry was the equalizing factor. Where Root would previously send in an entire Recon team to take down a troll, he sent in Harry instead; where a few LEP operatives or dwarven inmates looking for reduced prison sentences would infiltrate smuggling rings and set them up to fail, he sent in Harry instead. Root couldn't use Recon above-ground as liberally as before, so Harry became his fist, and Holly and Foaly his eyes and ears as they monitored Harry.

Meanwhile, the LEP's "test case," Holly, had completed over 60 missions successfully over the last 5 years, breaking Root's record of 40 missions over an 8-year period. Combined with the fact that Holly had guided Harry to success in all of his missions, normally, Holly would have been a shoe-in for the position of a Major.

Unfortunately, given her central role in the drama that was the Fowl Affair, the Council held her as a scapegoat and tried to fire her; when they were forced to backtrack due to Root's threat to resign, they resigned themselves to butting in from time to time and relegating her to menial or undesirable duties. Case in point - she still wasn't a Major, and to commemorate her 60th successful mission, she had been assigned to guard duty at Howler's Peak.

"Couldn't they have assigned me to Atlantis at least?" Holly mumbled to herself.

Her partner, Chix, smacked his lips dreamily. "Yeah, their sushi is amazing. And you get to see the dolphins and porpoises swimming by - I mean, the views are great! Here, there's just stone walls and a bunch of canyons."

He added slyly, "Speaking of sushi -"

"For the last time, Chix, I'm not interested in dinner."

Chix smirked. Not for the first time, Holly cursed the partner that she'd been assigned; like his fellow sprites, Chix was loud, cocky, and absolutely convinced that all ladies would eventually faint in awe in his presence. Not only did this mean that she had to put up with his constant flirting, but she also had to essentially perform both guard duty and surveillance all by herself.

"Corporal, before you get started again, why don't you make a pass through the corridors while I keep an eye on the cameras? As it is, I've been kind of doing both for the last few hours, so maybe you can start contributing now."

"Sure thing, sweets. Don't worry - by the time I get back, you'll be begging me for a date. The ladies always do."

Holly rolled her eyes. "By the time you get back, it's more likely that I'd have fallen asleep if only to escape your horrible attempts at flirting."

Holly hated guard duty. On one hand, she knew that it was a vital task as she and Chix were effectively the barrier between a prison full of angry goblin criminals and Haven; on the other hand, she literally had nothing to all day other than stare at cameras or patrol the corridors. Occasionally, supply shuttles would malfunction, and she'd have to go out to the canyons and restart them; frankly, that was the most exciting part of the job since it gave her the chance to fly.

Otherwise, there was no adrenaline, no excitement in this job. It couldn't compare to hunting down a fleeing criminal in a high-speed chase through downtown Haven or corralling a loose troll away from the tunnels or shuttle-ports back to its pen.

Although, to be honest, Holly had to admit that she was slightly envious of Harry; not only were his missions surface-based (oh, how she missed flying above-ground and feeling the fresh air buffeting her face), but his missions...well, they were what she had imagined doing when she had first signed up for the LEP. It's what she had begun doing until the entire Fowl Affair.

'At least, I get to live vicariously through him as his handler. Boy, he's grown up a lot in the last few years. He's got solid control over his magic, and with Foaly's help, created a solid suit of armor that integrates both runes and fairy tech to give him an edge in battle.'

At the same time, there was a part of Holly that was always terrified for Harry and clucking over him like a mother hen during his missions; the boy was as impulsive as she was, and that was saying something since elves were considered the most impulsive and emotional race among the People. In fact, she had insisted upon becoming his handler after he and his friend, Dobby, (and weren't house-elves a big surprise) single-handedly burned down Malfoy Manor; that way, she could AT LEAST keep an eye on his antics.

'I mean, it's sweet that he wanted to free all the house-elves, but did he have to wait for Malfoy to come back? Couldn't he have disguised himself at least, with his glamours or whatever? Not to mention the WidowMaker - maybe if Malfoy hadn't recognized him, we wouldn't have a magically-enhanced assassin after him. Well, here's to hoping that his latest mission in Istanbul went smoothly.'

Not that it would - Holly had jokingly coined the term, "Potter Effect," to describe the chaos that followed in Harry's wake, even if he wasn't on a mission and was simply visiting a place. Case in point - their first meeting. 'How many magical 8-year-olds would have accidentally teleported to the exact location that a teenage criminal mastermind was lying in wait to kidnap a fairy?' Holly though fondly.

Holly's musings were cut short when one of the screens flickered. 'That's odd.'

"Corporal, report in. Where are you at the moment?"

"Passing through corridor 8, sweets, right by the prison entrance. There's a visitor, Generall N'Zall, wants to see his cousin or something. I'm going to go give him the standard check-up."

"Corporal, I don't see any visitor in the cameras for corridor 8. In fact, I don't see you there either."

"Relax, sweets. The cameras glitch from time to time, it's probably just some interference or something."

Which was total bullshit. Foaly had personally designed the cameras and security measures for Howler's Peak, and from what Holly knew about her centaur friend, he probably conducted regular security checks and updates, so the probability that this was a glitch was less than nil.

"Corporal, draw your weapon. I think that -"

"Would you relax already?! Everything's fine. I mean, it's just -"

BOOM!

Holly was thrown out of her chair and back against the wall; fortunately, her finely honed reflexes allowed her to hit the wall with her feet and push off against it to land on the ground in a crouch, Neutrino-2000 drawn. There was only static on the screen with camera 8's feed.

BOOM!

Camera 7 was down. Holly had rushed out of the room and was punching in the communications code for Foaly.

BOOM!

Camera 6 was down.

"Foaly, Howler's Peak is under attack! Inform the Commander and get some men her ASAP!"

"Wait, what? Did you just say that Howler's Peak -"

BOOM!

Camera 5 was down.

"Just get some men here!" Holly shouted. "We've lost half of the surveillance feeds already, and my partner is down."

"Will do, Holly. Hang in there."

"Do I have a choice?"

BOOM!

Holly sprinted through the corridors.

'Me and my big mouth - I just had to wish for more excitement, didn't I?' Holly thought grimly.

Holly's first priority was to reach corridor 8, assess the situation, and recover Chix. After that, it was to put down the intruders before they could release any prisoners.

'The last thing that I need is to be stuck in a goblin prison with rampaging inmates.'

BOOM!

'And these explosions aren't helping.'

Holly ran down the stairs as fast as she could.

BOOM!

She was surprised to see a group of heavily armed goblins swarming into the corridor 7. Holly instinctively shielded herself before they could see her, and luckily, any goblins staring in her direction only saw a flicker.

She saw the goblins plant charges on each prison door in the corridor; once they stepped back, the leader pulled out a trigger and pressed the button.

BOOM!

A line of flame and electricity arced through each door, which promptly groaned and collapsed.

Holly stared at the sight with a gaping mouth. Goblins were supposed to be...stupid. For Frond's sake, they weren't supposed to be smart enough to operate bombs, much less develop magically-enhanced ones.

And having spent several years working with Harry and Foaly on magically-enhanced armor and weapons, Holly could definitely tell when magic had been combined with weaponry.

If there were any lingering doubts that these weren't the same goblins that she was used to, they were dashed as she continued down to corridor 8. Another group of goblins rushed into the prison, and this time, they hacked through the doors with their swords and axes alone.

They had kicked Chix's body aside, and Holly could see it laying near the metal detector.

Slowly, Holly sidled along the wall and approached the body. 'Just have to retrieve him and get out of here. There are too many of them, especially since most of the inmates should be loose now. I can't take on all of them at once - especially these new guys.'

Unfortunately, Holly's luck ran out at that moment; the lead goblin in corridor 8 stiffened and turned his head. He froze as his eyes raked over Holly's exact position.

"There! She's invisible - do not let her get away!" he roared.

His cohorts roared and rushed towards Holly. Seeing no point in shielding any longer now that her cover was blown, Holly activated her thrusters and leaped above the charging goblins. She back-flipped and landed right next to Chix's body; quickly taking his vitals, she was relieved to see that he was still alive. He had a few mild burns and a moderate concussion.

Taking out her Neutrino, Holly attempted to fire a few shots at the sneering goblins, but nothing happened. 'What the-'

"What's the matter, elf? Gun not working?" a goblin sneered.

Holly tossed the now-useless gun aside, grabbed Chix, and attached him to her harness. Her Moonbelt instantly took some of the weight off her back, so she was able to launch her Double-Dex's thrusters and shoot straight out the entrance.

Just in time too - the recently released inmates and the invading goblin warriors from the other floors all came rushing down the stairs into corridor 8, roaring for elvish blood. They were free at last, and they wanted revenge against their captors. The goblin warriors, on the other hand, were simply relishing the fight and the fact that they had reconnected with their underground brethren after so long.

* * *

Holly pushed the throttle to its maximum level, desperately trying to outrun the wave of goblins behind her.

'Who were those guys? The second set of goblins were superficially similar to the ones we've seen before, but they had different weapons and a better command over magic. Could they be from the Wizarding World?'

Holly's musings were cut short as she saw a massive fireball approach her. She swerved and narrowly avoided it. Using her helmet cameras, she zoomed in on the area from which the fireball came and saw a sea of goblins.

"D'Arvit."

The goblins were chanting and combining the sharp rocks of the canyon with wreaths of flame - flames that took on the shapes of chimeras, lions, dragons, and various other animals. At the end of a chant, they punched upwards, and a rock instantly jutted upwards and catapulted the ball of flame and rock into the air - directly towards Holly.

Holly ducked, bobbed, and weaved through the incoming shower. She knew that she had to lose these goblins before she entered the canyons, where the narrow walls would constrict her movements and make her a sitting duck. 'But I can't go any faster on these wings. If only -'

A lightbulb lit in Holly's head; she swerved around yet another incoming missile and ducked behind a rock outcropping near the entrance to the canyon. Given the goblin army's current pace of attack, it wouldn't last long - just long enough for Holly's gambit.

"Dobby!" she shouted.

POP!

"Dobby is here!" the creature squeaked. "How can he helps Missy Holly?"

"Get me out of here, Dobby! Back to Haven!"

Dobby squealed in delight. "Dobby gets to see Haven! Dobby always wanted to see ours city. Missy Holly-"

A blast leveled off half of the outcropping. "NOW, Dobby!" Holly screamed.

Dobby promptly grabbed hold of Holly's arm, and with a "POP!", the trio disappeared.

* * *

 _Haven_

POP!

"D'Arvit!" Root swore as Dobby, Holly, and Chix suddenly appeared in the middle of his office.

"Commander, you need to recall the strike team that is being sent to Howler's Peak!" Holly gasped out.

"Captain, what's going on? And who is -"

"There's no time, Commander. We need to call off the strike team and get some medics for Corporal Chix. Hell, call back all LEP officers to Haven - the goblins will be marching here next."

"Goblin army? That's preposterous! They're too divided, and even if somebody managed to unite them, they're too stupid to actually operate powerful weapons."

"These goblins aren't the same as the ones we're used to dealing with, Sir," Holly retorted tersely. "I suspect that they're from the Wizarding World because they're mixing magic with our weapons, and some of them are using enchanted swords and the like. Here's my helmet's video feed, for your convenience."

Holly forwarded the feed to Root, who swore as he saw the armored goblins break out the inmates using special explosives. His eyes widened as he caught the missiles catapulted at Holly by the goblin army in front of Howler's Peak.

"We need to get this to the Council right now."

"Sir, with all due respect, we don't have time for that. We need to act now."

"Captain, much as I would love to act immediately on this information, you know that the LEP's stock with the Council has been declining over the last few years. I don't want us to be dragged through additional hearings or inquiries -"

"Maybe so, Sir. But you saw the video. And you saw how my Neutrino stopped working as the magical concentration increased; our tech's not used to working with that level of magic. My wings only survived because Foaly made a matching set for me and Harry, and his pair had to account for magic. Frankly, we're sitting ducks once the goblins get here."

"Our DNA cannons shouldn't be affected though," Root argued back. "Yeah, the Neutrinos and wings were designed by Koboi Enterprises, but Foaly built those himself. And knowing Foaly, he probably compensated for magical interference."

"Maybe so. But my instincts are buzzing, and I have a bad feeling about this, Sir. We need to evacuate as many civilians as possible in case those cannons don't work; right now, all our begs are in the cannon basket."

Root studied her carefully. Holly was one of his finest officers, and her instincts hadn't led her wrong yet. Thus far, she had handled the situation excellently, getting both herself and her colleague out of a war-zone with minimal damage and bringing back vital intel to HQ.

"Captain," he began cautiously. "I'm going to go ahead and report these findings to the Council. During that time, of course, I trust you and the rest of my officers to keep track of this situation and respond to incoming threats appropriately. Do you understand, Captain?"

"Perfectly," Holly replied with a straight face.

"Good," Root nodded. "I leave you to your devices, Captain. Good luck."

* * *

As Root left the office, Holly turned to Dobby.

"Dobby, could you rally the liberated elves' network and get them to teleport as many civilians and officers as possible out of the streets and into the LEP base? If the DNA cannons at Haven's entrance fail, then the plasma doors on base are the only remaining safeguard, so this should be the safest place."

Dobby nodded and popped away.

Holly took a deep breath and opened a communication channel to Foaly in her helmet.

"Holly! Thank Frond you're alive! I saw the whole thing from your helmet feed!"

"Good to see you too, Foaly. Listen, can you send out a message to all of the officers in the field? Summon them back to base?"

"Holly, we should be fine. The DNA cannons -"

"Just in case, Foaly. I've got a hunch about this. Please."

* * *

"D'Arvit! What the hell are you?!"

"Me is Blinky! Me is getting yous out of harm's way!"

"Wait a sec-"

Blinky grabbed the bewildered pixie's arm, along with that of her husband and child, and popped away.

* * *

"Ah! Get out of my bathroom!"

"Me is Remy! Come with me if yous want to live!"

* * *

Harry initially had the bright idea of freeing each and every house-elf in Britain after his success at Malfoy Manor; Dobby had quickly disabused him of that notion, pointing out that the slave bond drove many elves mad if they weren't bound to a wizard. Only a few strong-willed or extremely tortured elves like himself or his peers at Malfoy Manor rejoiced upon being freed.

So, Harry revised his plan; the liberated elves would go through the wizarding world, pinpointing the house-elves that were most open to being emancipated, and once they'd prepared a sufficiently large list, Harry and his elves would go on to free them. In this way, he built up a moderately large network of liberated house-elves and used them to gather information and keep an eye on the wizarding world.

On the side, he studied the particulars of the house-elf slave bond and worked on eliminating it altogether; as a part of his work with the LEP, Harry inevitably ran into many foreign wizards, and he consulted with them on the issue. Fortunately for him, while European wizards were lukewarm at best towards his mission, he received significant help from American wizards, particularly one Rupert Giles in Sunnydale, CA; thanks to that collaboration, he had achieved moderate success thus far as he had managed to eliminate the pain that usually accompanied the severing of ties between master and elf. Now he just had to convince the captive house-elves of that.

At any rate, Harry had made a point of introducing Holly to newly liberated elves as proof that they were once free and deserved to be free once more. Now, these house-elves were repaying the favor by helping Holly and the People in their hour of need.

* * *

That aside, while the house-elves were gradually moving Haven's citizens into LEP HQ, Root was arguing with the Council.

"You're missing the point. The goblins are attacking Howler's Peak, and we need to take action now!"

"Commander Root, need I remind you that this information comes from a _suspect_ source. It is simply preposterous to think that goblins could be smart enough to launch such an attack."

"Well, our goblins, sure, but -"

"The Wizarding World has no reason to attack us," Councilor Ark Sool replied dismissively. "We have had no relations with them since we broke off ties during the Fowl Affair, and last we heard, they had plenty of issues to deal with themselves. And surface-world goblins? Please - it's well-known that all fairies retreated below-ground."

"You morons! Didn't you bother collecting information on the magical creatures that wizards deal with? Centaurs, elves, goblins - a lot of them seem to be our surface-world counterparts, so obviously some of us stayed above-ground. So -"

"Commander Root, do not interrupt us again," Councilor Carretez responded sharply. "Our point is that we can't see a motive behind such an attack. Even if the surface-world goblins somehow found out about underground counterparts, why would they try to liberate them now? Especially since their counterparts are in prison? Wouldn't they try to contact us instead and try to get a better idea about the situation first? That's the logical thing to do."

Ark Sool chimed in. "Moreover, how did Captain Short get this information to you so quickly? Howler's Peak is at least an hour away from Haven. Judging by the time, she was here fifteen minutes after the attack began. She's obviously making this up."

"FOR WHAT REASON, YOU MORON!" Root roared.

The group's bickering was abruptly cut off by a now-familiar, "BOOM!".

Vinyaya - the only one who had been silent throughout the discussion - pressed the "Activate" button on the holo-communicator. 'Must have punched in the codes for the sentries already - smart woman. I knew that I could count on her support.'

"Councilor Vinyaya," the sentry saluted, sweating profusely. "We're under attack!" He stepped away from his holo-communicator, and the Council saw a sea of goblins - the same sea as in the video that Root had just shown them.

And this sea was producing the same missiles as before.

"Activate the DNA cannons. Fire your Neutrinos at them if they get too close to the wall," Sool commanded.

"Yes sir!" the sentry saluted - right before a missile came crashing down with a roar onto the spot where he was standing. The holo-communicator cut off.

* * *

Sentry Sorkin wiped away the sweat from his forehead. 'Never seen such a large army before. Aren't goblins supposed to be too stupid to work together? Nah, doesn't matter - the DNA cannons should take care of them.'

He punched "Confirm" when the interface displayed the goblin species and "Activate" to begin firing.

The cannons began rumbling, and their nozzles reoriented themselves so that they were directly facing the goblin horde. Sorkin relaxed as they emanated a high-pitched whine; they were charging and getting ready to roar.

"Get ready - "

PEEW!

A few sparks spat out of the nozzle.

"What?!" Sorkin gasped. "This can't be happening. They're supposed to work!"

The goblin horde drew closer, and their missiles were getting closer to the cannons' control center.

"D'Arvit! Work, dammit! Work!" Sorkin kept punching the "Activate" button, but now, the console was beginning to splutter and hiss in smoke.

"Oh no," Sorkin said with dawning horror. "We're doomed."

Those were his last words as a missile crashed down onto the control center at that moment and completely obliterated it.

* * *

"What?" Foaly gasped incredulously. He was monitoring the sentries' helmet feeds and was shocked to see that the DNA cannons had utterly failed.

'But I modified them to account for magical interference. Heck, everything that I design these days has that modification, thanks to Harry. What -'

Foaly froze as he realized, 'The Koboi upgrades. Those patches were applied to all publicly visible weaponry; the only things that didn't get them were Harry and Holly's armor and wings. Everything else..."

Foaly instantly began typing in the codes to open up a communication channel to Root.

Except nothing happened; his screen froze.

Then, everything in his lab shut down abruptly, leaving him the dark.

Alone.

Foaly stumbled blindly towards the door and searched the wall for the emergency-exit lever; he pulled it down but was dismayed to see that the door didn't open.

"Why, Foaly, did you really think that you could just waltz out of here that easily?" Koboi's voice emanated from the speakers.

* * *

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE DNA CANNONS DIDN'T WORK?" Ark Sool roared into the communicator of Root's helmet, which had been helpfully donated to the Council after the sentries' holo-communicator had been destroyed.

"I mean exactly what I said," the sentry replied irritably. "They hissed and whined and spat out a bunch of sparks. At this rate, they're going to be demolished in a few seconds by the missiles. The goblins are damn close to breaching the gates, and we can't hold them back since our weapons don't work either."

He continued, "A bunch of them are just blitzing us with axes - carving us right up, those are. Some of those axes/swords look primitive but are spitting out bolts of energy like our DNA cannons should have. You know what, I'm getting out of here!"

"Negative, soldier, hold your ground! I repeat -"

Root snorted. "He's gone, you fool. Honestly, I can't blame him. We need to relocate as many civilians to LEP HQ as possible. At the very least, we can arm them there and get a temporary respite thanks to the plasma walls."

POP!

Root would never admit it, but he snapped a quick photo of the councilors' faces when Dobby teleported into the room right in front of them.

"Root Sir, we needs to get you to safety," Dobby squeaked. "We is ench-"

"Who are you, foul creature? Root, remove him from our presence at once!" Sool roared.

"Oh shut up, Sool," Vinyaya muttered, rolling her eyes. She held up her tablet, where the news showed pictures of creatures similar to Dobby teleporting Haven's citizens away as goblins began pouring into the city. "He's here to help us."

"How can you just trust this thing? I mean, look at it - it's filthy and -"

Dobby clicked his fingers, and Sool suddenly noticed that no noise was coming out of his mouth.

"Thank you, Dobby," Root said, mouth twitching. "Let's get to HQ then, shall we?"

* * *

After disabling the DNA cannons, the goblins hacked through the front-doors within mere minutes; their magically enchanted missiles and weapons easily bypassed Haven's plain metal walls.

As they came pouring through, the goblins that had been imprisoned at Howler's Peak began pillaging and burning up the now-empty buildings on the outskirts of Haven. Goblin gangs that had escaped the LEP's reach joined their efforts, and soon a massive fire was eating its way towards downtown Haven.

Meanwhile, the armored goblins maintained focus and discipline and marched towards LEP HQ. They could sense the trail of house-elf magic leading there, so they followed diligently.

The army came to a halt in front of the plasma doors at LEP HQ.

* * *

"HA!" Foaly yelled triumphantly. "They won't be able to get past those since we never applied your upgrades there."

Koboi sighed dramatically. "You're right. Whatever shall we do..."

* * *

Some of the Howler's Peak goblins had broken off from pillaging and had rejoined the main army; they were supplied with softnose lasers that had been modified magically to fire without recharge. Normally, the plasma walls would be able to absorb the blasts. But what about a near-infinite barrage of laser blasts and magical charges from armored goblins' enchanted weapons?

The firing began.

At first, the plasma retained its healthy, pinkish color - heartening those within LEP HQ. But the continuous barrage of blasts were taking their toll; even though Foaly had taken magical interference into account while constructing the doors, he hadn't anticipated an attack of this intensity.

The walls shook as bolts of lighting combined with plasma bursts collied with the door. The pinkish color became red.

* * *

"D'Arvit," Foaly swore.

* * *

Holly had an epiphany.

"Everyone," she shouted to the gathered civilians and LEP officers. "Grab a weapon from the armory, and fire directly at the ceiling above the goblins. If we bring it down, maybe we can crush them."

The group complied, and a second barrage promptly ensued. Pieces of rock began falling off the ceiling.

Dobby and his cohorts congregated and directed as much magical energy as possible into their palms. When they could push out no more energy, they pointed upwards towards the target and let go.

A stream of lightning shot out at the rocky ceiling above the goblins, coinciding with the gunfire.

Their efforts were rewarded as the ceiling collapsed - and the barrage from the goblins ceased.

For a few moments.

To their horror, the armored goblins were on their knees - but were holding up the rocks that were about to crush them through persistent chanting and a rush of magic from their bodies.

With a roar of effort, they threw the rocks at the plasma doors.

Which turned blood-red. It was only a matter of minutes now.

* * *

"NO!"

Dobby turned to the rest of the liberated house-elves fiercely.

"We must holds them back! Protect our brothers and sisters!"

The other house-elves nodded vigorously, and they began weaving their hands in various shapes. Some of the house-elves broke off and began writing symbols on the ground, infusing them with blood or enunciating certain chants. Holly and the other gathered fairies stared in awe as wafts of blue magic were released into the air and solidified into a shield - right in front of the plasma doors.

The goblins were frustrated and exhausted; they had been so close to breaking through the plasma doors, but they had already expended too much energy in getting this far and in throwing off the rocks. They didn't have enough energy to bypass the house-elves' wards. Who knew that they would be this strong?

The leader grunted, "Retreat".

LEP HQ was safe. For now.

* * *

"The house-elves saved our bacon," Root stated bluntly.

Holly nodded in agreement. "Thank you, Dobby," she said warmly.

Dobby shrugged. "We helps our brothers and sisters. You are elves like us. Was the right thing to do."

Root shot a warning glance at Sool, who seemed as though he was going to spout some more insults about Dobby's appearance and how Dobby was not related to Sool at least. Sool swallowed his comments; at moments like this, he remembered why Root was nicknamed "Beetroot" and why he was equally feared and respected within the LEP.

"Somebody must have organized the goblins on the wizarding side. You know, informed them about their underground brethren and then egged them on to go free them," Vinyaya stated thoughtfully.

"And Sool, Carretez, right now, we have more important things to worry about - like surviving - than the LEP's above-ground assets. One of them just saved us right now," she added.

Root nodded stiffly and turned to Holly. "Get in touch with our other asset, and find the culprit."

"Sir, do you think that Fowl -"

"is behind this? He's at the top of my list - has the wizarding and fairy connections and the deviousness. Hell, I'm expecting him to contact us sometime soon with a ransom demand."

"Well, why don't I just go after him directly then? We can contact the asset later."

"Captain, I don't want to take any unnecessary risks during this operation. If Fowl did organize all this, it's best if you had all the tools at your disposal. I don't want my best officer to be ensnared by one of his traps again. That clear?"

"Yes, sir."

* * *

"So, where are you going with this, Opal?" Foaly inquired.

"All in due time, donkey-boy. All in due time."

* * *

"Foaly, Foaly, can you hear me? Foaly, why aren't you responding? I have some vital information" Harry muttered into his earpiece irritably.

POP!

Harry spun towards the source of the noise, a ball of red energy gathering at his fingertips, ready to stun the threat.

"Harry," Holly said calmly, "we have a situation."

"Wizarding and underground goblins have joined forces and are laying siege to Haven," a voice spoke from the shadows. Holly jumped.

"All right, you need to stop doing that. I mean, I get it's dramatic and all, but seriously - speaking from the shadows makes you seem more like an evil villain than anything. Also, the entire _I-can-see-the-future-_ thing is useful only if you warn people in time. So, like, that would have been helpful an hour ago," Harry grumbled.

"Harry, who's -"

"An ally. My name is Elizabeth, Captain Short. I believe that I can be of assistance to your current mission."


	5. Chapter 4: Two Heists

Chapter 4: Two Heists

 **With Harry**

 _Dingy Hotel Room, Istanbul_

"So, let me get this straight - you got the Locket Horcrux, captured the infamous WidowMaker, and met Elizabeth, who is supposedly a fortune-teller," Holly summed up.

Harry scowled. "Way to boil an epic adventure down to a single sentence. And well, fortune-teller's just the tip of the iceberg."

Holly waved off his objection dismissively. "Your epic adventure probably gave the Turkish Ministry a heart-attack. You did wear glamours right?"

Harry looked offended. "Holly, I'm a pro. How many such missions have I done by now? I wore both the glamours and my own special Notice-Me-Not field, which ensures that even if the glamours slipped, people would only remember seeing a black-haired person and nothing more."

Holly snorted. "And the reason that you even started disguising yourself was -"

"Because Malfoy recognized me during the Raid on Malfoy Manor, yeah yeah. But that was so long ago. I was only nine years old then and hadn't even gone on a single mission. Like I said, I'm a pro now."

Holly ruffled his hair fondly. "Even if you are a pro, that's one more tally in the Potter Effect column. I mean, a simple extraction turns into a high-speed chase above Turkish rooftops? Only you, Harry."

"What about the Hamburg Incident?"

"We are never going to discuss that - _ever._ Whose neck do I need to wring - I mean, who told you about it anyway?"

Elizabeth cleared her throat to cut short the pair's bantering. "Captain Short, contrary to your initial suspicions, Artemis Fowl has nothing to do with the current goblin insurrection."

"Listen ma'am, you might have convinced Harry that you're a fortune-teller of some sort, but I'm going to need some evidence myself. Why should we trust you, and how can you help us stop the goblin rebellion down below?"

Elizabeth calmly turned and made a clawing motion with her hands, almost as though she were trying to rip a hole in the air. Which frankly shouldn't be possible, _except for the fact that it was_. Because Elizabeth was now standing in front of an elliptical hole that she had torn into the air beside her, and Holly could see a room similar to the one that she was currently standing in on the other side of the hole. There were several differences between this room and the other room though - it was well-lit, the bed was palatial, and judging by the sunlight pouring through windows, it was daytime. But the architecture was similar enough that Holly could tell that it was still the same room.

"What in Frond's name is that? What, what -"

"Yeah, that was my first reaction too," Harry said, eyes sparkling with amusement and wonder. "Pretty neat, huh?"

"It's a tear, a pathway to an alternate reality. This tear is showing an alternate reality where this room was actually one of many in a five-star hotel; interestingly, the point of divergence between these two realities' hotels rests upon whether one of Ezio Auditore's Assassin recruits in the 1500s accidentally assassinated a certain Byzantine deacon. If he didn't, then the deacon goes on to have a son who opens a hotel at the peak of Suleiman the Great's reign, and his descendants continue to build it up until it's one of the best in Turkey. If he did, then the deacon's younger brother opens the hotel instead, but he completely bungles the entire thing, and we get this dump."

"So you can see -"

"Every possibility."

"But how does that tell you that Fowl is innocent?"

Elizabeth closed the tear and opened up another one nearby. This time, instead of the hotel room, the tear showed an unconscious Fowl tied to a chair much like the mercenary in the room with them.

"Go on, then. Drag him over here," Elizabeth ordered Holly.

Had it been any other situation, Holly would have bristled; only Root could take that tone of voice with her. Now though, Holly simply reached out uncertainly and grabbed hold of the chair. 'I shouldn't be surprised, but it's solid? So, this is all real. What have I gotten myself into?'

She yanked the chair forcefully through the tear, and the captive fell through onto their side.

"Here's some Veritaserum - truth-telling potion," Harry said, giving a bottle of clear liquid to Holly. "Don't worry - I didn't make it," he added hastily when Holly eyed it warily. "Elizabeth managed to pull it through one of the tears; apparently, there's not a single universe where I'm good at Potions."

"Well, there probably is, simply due to the sheer size of the quantum possibility space," Elizabeth said airily.

"It's just exceedingly hard to find?" Harry quipped.

Elizabeth levied an indecipherable look at him. "Not so much that it's hard to find as it is to find the right version - one similar to yourself - that is also good at Potions, among other considerations."

Holly turned to the slumbering Fowl heir and zapped him awake with a spark of magic from her fingers.

Fowl awoke instantly.

"Captain Short, Harry, to what do I owe this pleasure?" Fowl said coolly, his ice-blue eyes absorbing every detail of the milieu.

"Drop the act, Fowl," Holly said tersely. "We know that you're in league with the goblins."

Fowl cocked his eyebrow. "I assume that the People are currently facing a goblin insurrection. Given that you're holding me captive and interrogating me, there must be wizarding involvement as well - so, the wizarding goblins joined their underground brethren?"

"Impressive," Holly admitted. "Or it would be if you weren't backing the goblins and masterminding the siege of Haven."

Adding a thick layer of mesmer to her voice, Holly said, " _So, talk, Mudboy._ "

Fowl rolled his eyes; Holly was reluctantly impressed since most humans would have been drooling from the level of mesmer that she had used. "Thank you for confirming my assumptions, Captain Short. I am sorry to hear that Haven is under siege; I would not support any such plots since that would be detrimental to my bottom-line. At the end of the day, I am a thief, and most of my profits with regards to the People and the wizards come from smuggling between the surface and the underground. The siege is only going to hurt that."

Holly searched the Mudboy's eyes and did not see any signs that he was lying; her gut agreed and told her that he was telling the truth.

Still, better safe than sorry.

"Well, I hope you won't mind if we confirm your statements with this, hm?" Holly said, raising the bottle of Veritaserum.

Artemis' eyes widened. "Butler may not be around here, but my suit is loaded with explosives. I'll answer any questions you have so long as we can come to an agreement on them before getting started. If you ask me any questions outside of what we agree upon, then I will detonate the explosives."

Harry took a noticeable step away from Artemis; he was looking at the teen with grudging admiration.

"I have my secrets, and I am willing to guard them through any means necessary."

"Very well," Holly acquiesced.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the duo had concluded the interrogation.

As Holly pushed Fowl across the tear, he stared directly into Harry's eyes and said casually, "Do remember that both you and the People are welcome at the house anytime, so long as you don't intend any harm to me or my loved ones. It might be useful given that Haven is currently under siege."

Harry's eyes widened, and as soon as Elizabeth had closed the tear, he burst out, "We should setup portkeys to transport as many fairies as possible to Fowl Manor."

Holly gaped at Harry in shock. "What? Harry, did the tear emit some kind of hallucinogenic gas or otherwise mess up your mind? Because I could swear that you just said that we should move the fairies to the place where our former kidnapper lives."

"Remember how we used my blood to hijack the ward stones and free you from Artemis' orders before escaping Fowl Manor? I might have forgotten to mention that I essentially set up blood wards in the process. As long as Artemis or any of Fowl Manor's inhabitants don't intend to harm me, the wards will remain fully powered and are virtually impregnable."

"I KNEW IT! The Mudboy must have figured out a way to circumvent the Veritaserum; it makes sense that he's behind all this since this would put us in his debt and power -"

Elizabeth interrupted. "Trust me, there's no way in the multiverse to beat Veritaserum. It's a constant."

Harry added, "He's probably just looking to win back some good will from the People after what happened five years ago."

Both Holly and Elizabeth snorted at that, but before Holly could continue, Elizabeth noted, "I think it's more a case of, 'an enemy of my enemy is my friend.' I don't think either set of goblins like him; they'll most likely come after him once they've taken over Haven. At least this way, he gets some protection because it's not like we'll leave him to the goblins' mercies if there are other fairies with him."

That quickly quashed any guilt that Harry's statement had caused, as unbelievable as it was; to think that Holly may have been starting to feel guilty about leaving the vile Mudboy tied up!

"So, convinced, Captain?" Elizabeth inquired.

Holly nodded. "I've got one other question though - that Fowl acted similar to the one that we know, but he's from an alternate universe. So what he said still -"

"Applies, yes. I made sure to pick out a Fowl who was virtually identical to the one in this universe; in that universe, we actually went on a mission to Fowl Manor, caught him at the right time, and tied him up. Unfortunately, we never managed to interrogate him because Butler showed up at that moment."

Both Holly and Harry winced. "Let me guess, Butler tosses us around like rag dolls," Harry said dryly.

Elizabeth shrugged. "Pretty much."

She continued, "At any rate, Captain, not that you'd be interested, one of the constants across ALL of the universes is that no matter what type of Fowl we're dealing with, he has nothing to do with the goblin rebellion."

"So, you know the culprits then?" Holly asked hopefully.

"On the fairy side, sure. Opal Koboi and Briar Cudgeon. On the wizarding side, Lord Voldemort."

Holly and Harry shared a knowing look. "Guess this confirms my vision of his resurrection then," Harry said glumly. "I knew he was being too quiet, given that he'd finally acquired a body after so long."

"Wait, Lord Voldemort has a body, and you saw his resurrection?" Elizabeth asked, showing the first signs of surprise since the pair had met her. "I thought that he was still stuck in spectral form; none of my tears indicated that he had a body now."

Harry tapped his scar. "I get visions of his activities from time to time. About two years ago, I saw Malfoy and an unknown female bring him back in a graveyard; the female..."

He looked sick but forced himself to continue. "Carved out her heart, and Malfoy added a bunch of other ingredients along with that to a cauldron. Voldemort rose out of it at the end."

Elizabeth looked troubled. "Strange. I should have seen that," she whispered. "How did I miss it?"

Turning to Harry, Elizabeth asked, "You mentioned that there was a woman along with Malfoy during the ritual. Did you get a good look at her? Did you recognize her at all?"

Harry frowned and shook his head. "No, she was hooded, so I couldn't see her face at all, even when she was dying on the ground. But the ritual required a 'daughter's heart,' and Voldemort confirmed to Malfoy that she was his daughter in a sense."

Elizabeth mused to herself, 'This is...unexpected to say the least. Is there a rogue version of me that's trying to resurrect Comstock? That would explain why I haven't been able to eradicate him altogether; every Comstock I kill is probably matched by a Comstock that she is saving.'

The word "Horcrux" shook her out of her musings. "What did you say?"

Harry repeated his question. "You know that I'm hunting for Horcruxes, and so far, I've eliminated the diary, ring, and locket. I still need to get the cup and diadem though. I'm guessing they're in Gringotts, but can you confirm that?"

"I've already taken care of the diadem," Elizabeth replied brusquely. "It was in Hogwarts. The cup's in Gringotts, most likely in the Lestranges' vault. But as with Hogwarts, I can't open a stable tear to the right spot due to the strong wards and magical concentration."

To demonstrate her point, Elizabeth opened a tear, and for a moment, Holly and Harry could see the entrance to Gringotts. Within a few seconds though, the tear started shaking, and the image shattered, showing only darkness.

"Yeah, I'm not going through there," Holly said wryly. "Harry, why are we focusing on the Horcruxes right now of all times? Shouldn't we, oh I don't know, focus on the fact that HAVEN IS BEING BESIEGED BY GOBLINS?!"

"Right now, Gringotts' security is most likely significantly weaker than usual since a majority of the wizarding goblins are down below, attacking Haven. If we snatch the Horcrux and rob a few vaults, then they'll be forced to send a large contingent back to the bank," Harry explicated.

"Not to mention that such a robbery might force the Ministry to investigate the goblins' recent activities and could potentially instigate punitive measures," Elizabeth added thoughtfully. "Wizards are (rightfully) wary of goblin armies, so they'll be eager to dismantle the latest incarnation as quickly as possible."

"And we can divert Voldemort's attention away from whatever plot Koboi and Cudgeon cooked up; that way,

"Divide-and-conquer. Not a bad idea, except for one tiny little detail - Gringotts is virtually impenetrable. I mean, from what we've read in that library of yours, nobody's ever managed to break into that place," Holly countered.

"Guess we'll just have to be the first then," Harry said with a determined smile.

* * *

 **With Artemis**

 **(Disclaimer: Some of the text below is paraphrased from "Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident.")**

 _St. Bartleby's School for Young Gentleman, County Wicklow, Ireland_

"Please take a seat, Mr. Fowl," Dr. Po, newly minted counselor at St. Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen, motioned to the ornate chair in front of him.

Unlike others in his age group, the 16-year-old moved gracefully and efficiently to the chair and sat down, almost as though he were the CEO, and Dr. Po was the errant executive who had been called in for a meeting to discuss his ineptitude.

Dr. Po quickly shook off the impression, vivid as it was; he was one of the premier psychologists in Europe, dammit.

"So, Artemis, what do you want to talk about today?" he said, forcing a smile onto his face.

Artemis arched an eyebrow and steepled his fingers. "Let's discuss your chair, Doctor. Family heirloom, I take it?"

Dr. Po rubbed the armrests warmly. "Yes. Apparently, it was a favorite of Stede Bonnet, "The Gentleman Pirate" and one of my ancestors, back when he was just a moderately wealthy Barbadian sugar plantation owner; later on, once he'd become a pirate, he took it along with him on _The Revenge_ as a memento of his former life. After his demise, it was lost for years until my grandfather finally rediscovered it in Sivakasi, a quaint Indian town, and bought it for a steal."

"What a heart-warming tale," Artemis replied dryly. "Or it would be, were it not for the fact that your grandfather and successive generations of Pos have been successfully duped by a fake, albeit a high-quality one."

"Pardon me? Master Fowl, I assure you that this chair is a completely authentic relic from the Age of Piracy."

Artemis stood up and moved closer to the chair.

"Look here." Dr. Po's eyes followed his finger.

"Those furniture tacks - see the criss-cross pattern on the head? Machine-tooled, 1920 at the earliest. I rest my case - your grandfather was duped. But what does it matter? It's just a chair, right Doctor?"

Dr. Po snatched his notepad and began scribbling furiously, vainly attempting to hide his dismay. "Yes, yes, very clever, Master Fowl. Playing your little games just as your file said. I was hoping that you would share something about yourself instead, Master Fowl."

Artemis returned to his chair and smoothed out the creases in his trousers. "There is a problem here, Doctor."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

Artemis gave the good doctor his patented vampire smile; previous recipients had claimed that they fully expected fangs to sprout from the youth's gums and had opted to cut off further interaction with the youth rather than risk receiving the smile again.

Dr. Po could sympathize.

"I know the answer to any question that you could possibly think of asking me." Particularly since Artemis himself had read more psychology papers and books than the counselor and had even contributed to several journals under the pseudonym Doctor F. Roy Dean Schlippe. 'When will these idiots realize that they have no hope of analyzing, much less comprehending, a mind such as mine?'

"That's not the problem, Master Fowl."

"Oh?" Artemis was looking forward to this part. 'What is this quack going to diagnose me with today? Multiple-personality disorder? Or maybe I'm a pathological liar?'

"Your problem is that you don't respect anyone enough to treat them as an equal."

That was...unexpected to say the least. This doctor was smarter than his predecessors, but then he'd have to be given that Artemis had gone through sixteen counselors by this point. The school had no choice but to up the ante.

"That's ridiculous. I hold several people in the highest esteem. Einstein - his theories were usually correct -, Archimedes, Agrippa, and Ptolemy, among many others." Especially since the latter two straddled the lines between the wizarding and mundane worlds, so much so that the wizards mistakenly thought of them as members of their insular community.

Much like himself.

"That's not my point. How about someone who you actually know?"

Off the top of his head, Artemis could list Butler and his father. The latter had shaped his very core and had instilled in him a sense of grand purpose and destiny. 'Aurum est potestas. Gold is power. I have not failed you in that respect, Father - the Fowls are once again at the apex of the criminal world.'

The former had been his steadfast companion since birth and had evolved into a surrogate father after the disappearance of Artemis Fowl Sr., a role that Artemis came to fully appreciate after Butler saved his life when Jon Spiro sabotaged a business meeting; Spiro had attempted to steal the CCube, a supercomputer that blended fairy and human technology and was decades ahead of potential competitors, and ended up firing a gun at Artemis in the process. Butler had unflinchingly shoved Artemis aside and taken the shot for him instead.

'Butler nearly died that day. I suppose that Harry Potter deserves some praise.'

Harry had been capturing a rogue dwarf nearby just when the shooting began at the restaurant. Fortunately, for Artemis and Butler, Harry had a horrible sense of self-preservation and had actually run in the direction of the shooting to investigate the situation.

He arrived just in the nick of time - Spiro had turned the gun on Artemis and was preparing to fire. Harry simply thrust his palms outward, and a wave of energy burst the air, hurling Spiro and his goons away from Artemis and into the wall. Several dining tables followed in their wake.

Any goons who had somehow escaped the onslaught of dining tables didn't get much time to recover as Harry weaved his hands through the air, and all of the knives and cutlery in the restaurant picked themselves off the ground and promptly began chasing after them.

Artemis had barely processed the situation when Harry strode over to him and helped him onto his feet. Putting one hand on Butler's shoulder and another on his own, Harry promptly apparated them to a nearby hospital.

Harry then handed him several bottles. "Potion to stop further blood loss, potion to restore any blood lost, and pepper-up potion. Just bought them today as a part of a standard medical kit."

Without further ado, he disappeared with a crack.

Artemis had proceeded to commit Butler into the hospital using an alias and had used his emergency portkey to return to Fowl Manor, if only to escape the British wizarding authorities who were undoubtedly investigating the bout of magical activity at the heart of London and would snap at a chance to capture the infamous Artemis Fowl. Had this happened in Ireland, Artemis wouldn't have had to even worry about that since he still maintained a great relationship with the Irish Ministry, and the Irish Minister frequently consulted him on wizarding affairs that could potentially impact mundane Ireland. For all practical purposes, he was the mundane Irish Prime Minister in the eyes of the Irish Ministry of Magic.

But that wasn't the main point. The experience had forced Artemis to acknowledge the fact that Butler was like a father to him. 'And Harry Potter has my...respect, I suppose. If only he had more experience with technology and committed more robberies in the mundane world - I mean, this is the age of hacking for God's sake. He should at least be a novice hacker on the side. And it would be nice if he could cover his tracks more effectively - it's not exactly that difficult to uncover the secret identity of the wizarding thief Mort, glamours aside, or to predict his next victim (a Death Eater family, to say the least). Honestly, wizards lack an ounce of common sense.'

To return to the doctor's probing questions though, Artemis wouldn't admit any of this in public. 'Sentiment is a weakness, one that my enemies won't be afraid to exploit. And the walls are always listening.'

"I respect myself, Doctor."

Dr. Po smirked triumphantly and opened a window on his laptop. "Extraordinary. Every time I read this -"

"My biography, I presume?"

He nodded. "Firstly, there's your associate, Butler. A bodyguard, I understand. Hardly a suitable companion for an impressionable teenager. Then, there's your mother. A wonderful woman in my opinion, but with absolutely no control over your behavior. Finally, there's your father. According to this, he wasn't much of a role model even when he was alive."

That stung, but Artemis ignored it with practiced ease. "I believe there is a mistake in your file, Doctor. My father is still alive. Missing perhaps but alive."

Dr. Po re-checked the file, and his eyebrows raised. "Really? He's been missing for over seven years, and I believe that the courts declared him legally dead three years ago."

Artemis replied in a voice devoid of emotion, "I don't care what the courts or Red Cross say. He's still alive, and I will find him."

"Even if he were still alive and were to return somehow, what then? What are your plans for the future? Will you follow in his footsteps and become a criminal? Perhaps you already are?"

The doctor didn't know how accurate his statements were. Although Artemis did feel compelled to correct him slightly, "My father is no criminal. He was moving our assets into completely legitimate enterprises; the Murmansk venture was meant to be emblematic of his efforts."

"You're avoiding the question, Artemis."

But Artemis had had enough of this little conversation. 'Time to play a game.'

"But Doctor, this could be a sensitive line of questioning," he said, acting as though he were shocked. "For all you know, I could be suffering from a depression."

Dr. Po leaned forward unconsciously, sensing a breakthrough. "I suppose you could. Is that the case?"

Artemis dropped his face into his hands. "It's my mother, Doctor."

"Your mother?" Dr. Po prompted excitedly. Finally, a chance to salvage this conversation; truth be told, he had been considering the merits of becoming the 17th counselor to resign from St. Bartleby's and possibly retire from practice of psychiatry entirely.

"My mother, she -"

"Yes..."

"She forces me to endure this ridiculous therapy when the school's so-called counselors are little better than misguided do-gooders with degrees."

Dr. Po sighed and slumped back into his chair. "Very well, Artemis. Have it your way, but you are never going to find peace if you continue to run away from your problems."

"Excellent. I trust that our session is over then?"

Dr. Po waved irritably, and the youth left the room just as gracefully as he had entered.

* * *

Rather than returning to class though, Artemis strolled to the main gate and entered the Bentley waiting at the school's entrance.

"It appears that I will be able to join the class trip after all, Butler."

Butler chuckled at his charge's antics and began driving. "I assume that our mission is still -"

"On track, yes, Butler."

"Are you sure that you want to do this though? Granted, you would be the youngest master thief ever if you pulled this off; I understand that this painting is a bit like a Nobel Prize for thieves. But the risks -"

"have been calculated and accounted for. My current plan has a 62.7% chance of success."

Artemis paused. Suddenly looking more his age, he continued softly, "Not to mention that we have not been able to find my father anywhere on Earth during the last 7 years. The painting is the key to investigating other possible locales."

Silence reigned for the rest of the drive.

* * *

 **With Harry**

 _Leaky Cauldron, London_

"Your plan to rob the wizarding world's safest bank is to Polyjuice into an imprisoned Death Eater and improvise the rest? Are you out of your Merlin-forsaken mind?" Bill Weasley asked incredulously.

"When you put it like that, any plan would sound horrible," Harry retorted indignantly. He was using the Egyptian glamours this time, so Bill Weasley was currently looking at a bald, chocolate-skinned, brown-eyed teenager who reached up to Bill's shoulders.

"Listen, Mongoose, I know that you're an extremely talented thief and am deeply grateful to you for saving my baby sister from the Chamber of Secrets, but I can't help you with this unless you give me more details. If this goes sideways, it's not just my job that will be on the line - it's my life. The goblins will execute anybody who was even remotely involved with a break-in attempt."

Harry sighed before complying reluctantly, "A majority of the goblins aren't even at work right now."

Bill frowned in confusion. "It probably looks that way when you enter Gringotts, but I assure you that there are a lot more goblins once you get past the lobby. They're really good at hiding themselves away from prying eyes."

"No, trust me - they've formed an army and are involved in a siege at the moment. The only goblins in the place right now are stationed at the front desk."

Harry forestalled further questions by raising his palm. "The more you know, the more involved you are in our scheme, and the more likely it is that the goblins will be able to pin something on you. Also, I can't give away my sources - their identities are too important to risk. Anyway, my sources tell me that they're not going to be interested in cooperating with wizards any longer, so you might want to get out of the banking business sharpish."

Bill looked at the teen thoughtfully. "At least tell me why you're doing this. I'm pretty sure that this isn't just an attempt to seize the gold belonging to Death Eaters' families. Merlin knows that it would be easier to undermine them by continuing to rob and burn down their manors as you've been doing."

"You're close to the truth. Let's just say that one of the Death Eaters' vaults contains an item of great importance to Voldemort. Destroying it would bring us one step closer to beating Voldemort."

Wincing at Harry's repeated use of the Dark Lord's name, Bill replied, "Since you're obviously not going to tell what that object is or why it's so important to You-Know-Who, which family's vaults are we talking about?"

"The Lestranges, to start off with."

Bill groaned; he really wanted to hit his head against the table. "So, you want to rob one of the deepest, most securely guarded vaults in the safest bank in Britain? Again, are you out of your mind?"

"Yes." Harry paused before adding, "If you want, I can also hit the Malfoys' vaults along the way."

"As tempting as that sounds, let's just focus on getting you out of this venture alive," Bill muttered. Shaking his head, he began delineating the security measures that Harry and his cohorts would likely run into.

* * *

"First level - the lobby's intent wards monitor incoming customers' thoughts and emotions and try to steer them away from any notions of robbery, mostly by making them fixate on the possible consequences of being caught. The engraving at the entrance marks the wards' starting point. Your old-school Aurors like Mad-Eye Moody could easily bypass these since it's a bit like resisting a strong Imperius."

"Second level - once you get past the lobby, the goblins will guide you into one of the carts. To get to the high-security vaults at the lower levels, you'll have to go through a waterfall called 'The Thief's Downfall.' It will wash away any and all enchantments on you - runes, blood magic, Polyjuice, ANYTHING. It's a case of 'no plan survives contact with the enemy.'"

"Third level - a blind dragon per family vault; each dragon has been conditioned to cower upon hearing the Clanker, which is essentially magically enchanted bell. I could...misplace one of them."

"Fourth level - the Lestrange vault almost certainly has an additional blood-based check at the entrance. So, you'll need their hair for Polyjuice and blood for entry (just in case)."

"Fifth level - burning, boiling, and duplication curses on all items in the vault, along with curses that may have been applied by the family itself."

"Sixth level - there's rumors that the high-security vaults are arranged around a pit of Inferi, which consists of the reanimated corpses of previous robbers who had gotten that far."

"Normally, you'd be stopped right after the second level since the goblin warrior squads are on standby in a tunnel near the Thief's Downfall, which will alert them through a ward if any enchantments are removed. My guess is that you won't make it past level 4 - unless you have a new plan for breaking into Azkaban, in which case you're all alone on that one."

"And don't forget - you still need to get back out even if you somehow manage to get into the Lestrange vault and nab the target."

* * *

Bill stared at Harry after saying his piece. "Have you changed your mind then?" he asked hopefully.

"Nope. The op's still a go; the hardest parts are levels 5 and 6," Harry retorted cheerfully. "Goblins can't apparate, so how long do we have till the wards' pull gets strong enough to force the goblin squadron to return to the bank?"

"They still have portkeys though. My guess is ten minutes tops if they're really out waging war like you say. Do your sources say there's a goblin rebellion on the cards, Mongoose?"

"It's looking like there will be in the near future; we know for sure that they've allied themselves with Voldemort. As soon as they finish crushing this enemy -"

"Wait, they're attacking the fairies, aren't they?" Bill interjected shrewdly.

"Fairies? What are you talking about?"

"They're not attacking any of the wizarding communities; believe me, there are so few of us compared to the mundane population that we would have heard of that even if they were attacking the Irish magical community, which has pretty much been a black hole since we broke off relations with them for helping out Fowl during the entire hostage crisis. That leaves only the People; they're a new factor in this entire game, and Voldemort is probably taking them off the board before making his play for Wizarding Britain."

Harry looked at Bill, impressed.

Bill merely shrugged. "My dad's really into the Muggle world, and it kind of rubbed off on me, this idea of looking to other cultures and societies to re-energize our world. I thought that it was fascinating when we discovered a whole new hidden society during the Fowl Affair and regretted the fact that we didn't bother furthering relations afterwards."

Harry stood up from the table. "Bill, thank you for the information. Hope you enjoyed lunch."

"No problem, Mongoose. Thanks for the great lunch. Also, could you tell your sources to keep an eye out for Harry Potter? If they hear anything, could you please pass it along to me?"

"Why?"

"Some people that I know are really eager to meet with the kid, especially since You-Know-Who's back now, and he's his #1 target. We want to get him to safety as soon as possible."

"...I'll see what I can do."

As Harry walked away from the table, he realized that he'd forgotten something and turned back; he tossed a coin towards Bill and said casually, "Oh, before I forget, your girlfriend's the WidowMaker. Just say, 'There and back again,' and the coin will transform back into her."

Not for the first time, Bill Weasley bemoaned his tendency to attract rogues. 'Maybe Mum's right, and it is the earrings?'

* * *

 **With Artemis**

 _The Louvre, Paris_

Thanks to a donation from an anonymous art lover, an entire class of students from St. Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen, including one Artemis Fowl, were currently visiting the Louvre.

"Sir, please step through," a security guard said, motioning towards the metal detector.

To anyone who knew Artemis in the slightest, his slouched posture and casual gait would have screamed trouble, but the guard only saw a regular teenager who was being forced to visit an art museum.

"Geez, kid, you should feel privileged to visit this place. I mean, this is THE Louvre, the crown jewel of art museums. Don't look so down."

Artemis scowled at the security guard. "I guess."

"Kids these days - they don't know how good they've got it, privileged brats."

As Artemis stepped through the metal detector, he stumbled at the last step. The guard raised his hand to catch the fumbling boy, and Artemis reluctantly accepted it.

"Sheesh, a thank-you won't hurt, you know. Next time, I should just let you face-plant on the ground."

What the poor guard didn't know was that Artemis had soaked his hand in the Liquid Imperius potion just before exiting his Bentley and joining his class at the Louvre's entrance. Incredibly difficult to prepare but undeniably effective, the Liquid Imperius could be administered through the barest of skin contact and effectively functioned like the Imperius Curse. Surprisingly, it was outlawed well before the Imperius Curse as the pure-bloods in the upper echelons of the International Confederation of Wizards (ICW) were afraid of falling victim to the potion themselves; after all, an action as innocuous as a handshake could very well lead an unsuspecting pure-blood to renounce his wealth and confess to a multitude of imagined crimes, thereby catapulting him from the upper reaches of society to the very dregs or even Azkaban.

Unfortunately, the ICW did not count on the fact that one did not need to be a wizard/witch in order to prepare potions. They also did not account for someone like Artemis, who had deep connections in dwarven smuggling circles. Circles that had specialized in acquiring and trading contraband and rare magical ingredients between the mudane, wizarding, and fairy worlds for centuries. Finally and most importantly, by banning the Liquid Imperius early on itself, the ICW both succeeded and failed in that the Wizarding World soon forgot about its existence entirely (with the exception of one Horace Slughorn, who was happily retired now); they succeeded in that the potion was no longer used but failed since no one would be able to identify its use if it were somehow rediscovered.

After his enormous success in acquiring both fairy and wizarding gold during the Fowl Affair, the dwarves had been more than willing to help him, partly because they feared the consequences of having him as their enemy and partly because they were impressed by his cunning. In short, Artemis helped the dwarves expand their presence in the mundane world and received both fairy technology and magical items (primarily potions) in return.

For example, Artemis had set up false identities for Mulch Diggums and several other "retired" smugglers; Diggums was currently posing as an upcoming actor, Lance Digger, in Hollywood without the LEP being any the wiser. Additionally, Artemis had set up several shell corporations to market the dwarves' contraband in the mundane world, for a healthy consultation fee of course.

Anyway, back to the guard - "Enjoy your visit, kid."

Artemis flashed his signature vampire smile in response. "Oh, I will."

Two minutes later, the unsuspecting guard high-fived one of his peers, who had come in late today since his wife had given birth to a daughter yesterday evening. That guard in turn shook hands with several other congratulatory peers, including the guards who screened tourists' baggage and belongings.

Ten minutes later, one Colonel Xavier Lee was successfully waved through the entrance security checks; he was carrying only a simple backpack. Normally, his size alone would have draw some scrutiny, but the guards were so HAPPY! The world was so great and blissful; all they had to do was obey that wonderful voice in their heads.

Fifteen minutes later, the prime vector (the first infected security guard) decided to take a bathroom break, per the voice's recommendation. When he'd gotten halfway to the bathroom, the voice urged him on to the power supply room instead, and he complied instantly. The voice was always correct; it would never lie to him.

Of course, the hidden security wizards didn't suspect a thing; they were looking for overt spells, not covert potions (especially arcane or long-forgotten ones). And not a single wizard tourist had dropped by today, and it wasn't like the Muggles were any threat in terms of magic usage.

* * *

 **With Harry**

 _Gringotts, Diagon Alley_

Bellatrix Lestrange leered down at the goblin clerk. "Are we done yet? Can I go to my vault now?"

"Pardon me for my skepticism, Ms. Lestrange, but I believe that our latest reports placed you in Azkaban."

"You filthy - How dare you question me, the most loyal and devout follower of the Dark Lord? If he didn't require your services at the moment, I would rend you right where you stand."

The goblin merely sniffed at her ravings. "Well, you certainly have her rants down to a tee. Be that as it may, could you submit your blood for additional verification?"

Harry-as-Bellatrix was stuck in a bind. He only had a single vial of Bellatrix's blood on him, and he needed that to bypass any blood requirements imposed by the vault door. Also, Bellatrix was more likely to Crucio the poor clerk for his request than to submit to him; the only problem with that was Harry wasn't sure that he could cast a Crucio. His only previous attempt, which had been against Malfoy while he'd been fleeing for his life, had failed pathetically. Decisions, decisions...

The goblin began screaming loudly in pain; his fellow clerks merely glanced aside as none of them wanted the madwoman to turn her attention onto them. Normally, they would have alerted the Ministry surreptitiously to her presence, but at the moment, the last thing they wanted was for the Ministry to investigate the bank and discover that most of their armed forces were otherwise occupied. What if _they_ decided to invade?

Harry-as-Bellatrix stared at the writhing goblin bemused. As goblin gradually fell unconscious, one of his fellow clerks calmly strolled over and offered to help them complete their business, acting as though nothing-out-of-the-ordinary had happened.

Harry was saddened by the thought that this could possibly be an ordinary occurrence in Wizarding Britain. 'Yep, no regrets in considering myself one of the People. Thank you, Holly, Foaly, and Root.' The thoughts of Voldemort's Horcrux and the siege of Haven were the only things that prevented him from abandoning the entire charade and high-tailing it from the bank.

A few minutes later, Harry-as-Bellatrix and the goblin had gotten a cart and were rapidly accelerating downwards into Gringotts' caverns, towards the high-security vaults.

* * *

 **With Artemis**

The Fairy Thief.

What the Nobel Prize was to scientists, poets, and diplomats, Herve's "The Fairy Thief" was to thieves. Unlike the Nobel Prize though, the owner of the "Fairy Thief" was usually unknown to 99% of his fellow thieves; only the most enterprising, cunning thieves ever uncovered that knowledge. Of that select group, even fewer got close enough to touch the painting; still fewer actually succeeded in obtaining it.

Ironically, till recently, the painting was viewed as a myth by most art historians and the rest of the general public; the only proof that it existed lay in a footnote in Herve's journals, which noted that he had gifted the painting to a lovely Turkish woman in an attempt to win her heart but she had promptly sold the painting off for a pretty penny.

Then, out of the blue, the legendary painting had arrived at the Louvre a few weeks ago, with a simple note stating, "More to come."

Artemis was instantly hooked. Over the last five years, he had restored Fowl Empire (not that it was publicly known as such) to its former billionaire status; the best part was that Interpol and other international police agencies had no idea who the head of the empire was or that the various groups in the Empire were actually not autonomous units.

But none of that could compare to the prestige of obtaining "The Fairy Thief."

Furthermore, while studying tourist photos of the painting and its milieu, Artemis' discerning eyes had caught the Gnommish symbols inscribed around the edges of the painting; he was ecstatic to discover that the words essentially translated into, "The door to other worlds lies on the back. Lutece was the architect, and I am the prophet."

Much like "The Fairy Thief" itself, Rosalind Lutece was nigh mythical among physicists. Legends say that she discovered a "Lutece Particle," which would have revolutionized quantum mechanics; apparently, in her first public demonstration of her findings, she used technology powered by the particle to levitate an entire city block and to open a door to other worlds, thereby successfully proving the multiverse theory.

Unfortunately, a day later, Lutece's mansion exploded into flames in a freak accident, which obliterated both Lutece and her work. Pity that Lutece worked alone since her life's work died with her.

What intrigued Artemis about the entire situation, though, was the fact that there were no photos or other physical evidence that the presentation had ever occurred; in fact, newspaper articles and venue records showed that an ornithology group had presented their findings on several newly discovered bird species at that time and place. Similarly, a majority of the presentation's audience declared that they were either busy elsewhere or that they clearly remembered a droll talk on birds; the only reason that Lutece's legend even endured was the fact that, as the years went on, some audience members remembered parts of it as though it were a long-forgotten dream and dutifully recorded it.

As with the apocryphal tale of Isaac Newton's apple, it didn't help that all records on Lutece's presentation began only decades after her death.

But Artemis' instincts hadn't let him down yet; he had uncovered the existence of both wizards and fairies five years ago when the rest of the world had consigned the two groups to fairy tales. He could feel a similar tingle of electricity racing along his spine whenever he thought about the words on the "Fairy Thief."

There was also the fact that he hadn't been able to find his father over the last 7 years, despite personally leading several expeditions into the Arctic and brutally bringing down high-ranking figures in the Russian Mafia. If the painting's words were true, then maybe he could find a world where his father had never been lost in the Arctic, or even if he had, he could at least obtain some clues as to where he could be held.

And now he was standing right in front of it. 'I'm coming for you father...'

* * *

 **With Harry**

Despite the goblin's best attempts, the cart didn't even slow down and simply barreled through the Thief's Downfall.

Harry felt himself shrink and his long, straight tresses shorten back to their usual curly, unmanageable levels, among numerous other physical changes. Coughing and spluttering, he took out his glasses from his robes and put them on again.

"As despicable as Bellatrix is," Harry remarked, "I'm going to miss being able to see without glasses."

He turned and saw that Holly and Elizabeth were both visible again; the waterfall had disabled Holly's magical shielding, returning her to the visible spectrum, and shorted out Elizabeth's cam-foil.

"What about iris-cams?" Holly queried.

"I've been wearing glasses as long as I can remember, so it's partly a matter of habit," Harry admitted. "But the iris-cams and contact lenses in general cause me quite a bit of eye-strain; I end up tearing up quite often."

"Eight minutes," Elizabeth called out tersely, stunning the bewildered goblin and marching towards the series of vaults marked with the Lestrange coat-of-arms.

The pair sobered and quickly followed Elizabeth.

"About the guard -"

"Yes, I Imperiused him, and yes, I cast the Cruciatus on the clerk earlier," Elizabeth admitted bluntly.

Harry couldn't help pointing out, "Couldn't you have Confunded the clerk into escorting us instead? Or Imperiused him like you did this one?"

"It was either the Cruciatus or the clerks suspecting that you weren't Bellatrix and immediately calling for help before attacking us. Goblins respect strength above all else," Elizabeth responded.

Still, Harry couldn't put aside his misgivings about putting that goblin clerk through that much pain. Sue him for being sentimental, but he'd felt a part of himself die at seeing that goblin suffer from mind-numbing agony.

'Maybe the ability to see and know everything in the multiverse isn't as cool as I thought it was...'

* * *

"Why couldn't we have just gotten the bloody guard to wait a bit before the Thief's Downfall while we got rid of offending tools and waited for Harry's Polyjuice to wear off?" Holly grumbled. "We'd have a lot more than 8 minutes then."

"Because our escort needed to remain under the Imperius in order to get us through the waterfall in the first place; the tracks are charmed to accept only contact from the cart's wheels, so we couldn't have walked or otherwise traversed the distance without the cart. And the cart requires a goblin operator," Elizabeth responded. "At any rate, the goblins upstairs are monitoring all of their fellows' vitals, and the moment we stunned this guy, they knew and promptly activated their alarms."

As the trio marched on, Holly reflected on how Harry had fundamentally retained his innocence over the last five years, despite his prodigious improvements in magic and extensive experience in completing surface-side missions for the LEP. She was proud of the fact that he had never killed anyone in any of his missions; even when he burned down the Death Eaters' mansions as Mongoose, he always left a way out for the victims, whether it was a lone house-elf or a portkey. (Malfoy was the lone exception, but Holly knew that was actually more a case of adrenaline and carelessness.) In many ways, he fully believed in the sanctity of life, much like the People themselves rather than the race that he belonged to.

'He hasn't even gone back to get revenge on the Dursleys.' Which was something that Holly would have understood (and implicitly supported). Instead, Harry had chosen to forget and move on; he had explained to Holly that as far as he was concerned, they just weren't worth his time.

'There's also the fact that others with his power and skill would have probably launched a wold domination attempt by now rather than working with the police.'

Yet, in the case of Elizabeth, Holly now saw Harry's innocence and optimism as a double-edged sword; he had granted the woman his full trust mere moments after meeting her and seeing her special abilities. As far as he was concerned, since she was "special" like them, she was trustworthy.

On one hand, Elizabeth was undoubtedly a valuable ally; she had managed to absolve Fowl of involvement in this entire affair and had obtained both Bellatrix's hair and blood - all through tears alone, whereas previously they would have had to engage in two additional time-consuming, arduous break-ins.

On the other hand, seeing Elizabeth cast the Cruciatus on the goblin reinforced Holly's wariness towards the woman. Ultimately, Elizabeth was a human and an unknown quantity; she claimed to possess the ability to see all possible outcomes, but...

'I am the master of my fate.'

Holly believed in free-will above all else; what made her such an excellent LEP officer was the fact that she could see a third way where others only saw in binary. Elizabeth's claims of omniscience made her queasy, especially because the woman showed her willingness to justify some atrocious actions based on her abilities.

'What if "The Fates" or the multiverse suddenly shows you that it is no longer advantageous to you to work with us? Will you just eliminate us outright? Or abandon us at a crucial moment? I'll be keeping an eye on you...'

* * *

 **With Artemis**

Colonel Xavier Lee surveyed the Mona Lisa pensively while a gaggle of students from St. Bartleby's chattered incessantly near the Fairy Thief exhibit; the two Salon Carres were on the opposite ends of the long hallway.

 _5, 4, 3, 2, 1..._

The lights went out.

 _4 minutes._

Xavier Lee (a.k.a Butler) leaped into action; he bounded the length of the hallway in mere seconds. Thanks to a stint with the US Marines under one of his many aliases, Butler possessed excellent night-vision, so he quickly pinpointed Artemis in the gaggle of kids and subtly handed off a backpack to him.

Artemis felt the weight of a backpack being pressed on him, and he accepted it gratefully. His aloof demeanor and ice-prince reputation worked greatly to his advantage as there was a small but noticeable amount of distance between him and the other students, which gave both him and Butler room to maneuver.

The first thing he took out were what looked like a pair of contact lenses; in reality, they were iris-cams, which possessed an additional night-vision feature.

Once Artemis' visibility was restored, Artemis and Butler smoothly stepped over the security cordon around the display and walked over to the glass case.

 _3 minutes._

The teenage criminal mastermind took out a smartphone from the bag, started an app, and attached it to the bottom glass pane of the rectangular case; after a few seconds of subtle vibration, the pane and phone fell, and Butler caught it almost instantly. Four nails were attached to the phone.

As Butler set the pane down carefully onto the ground, the youth proceeded to reach into the glass case through the now-exposed bottom and pull out the painting, frame and all. He stopped when he felt a slight tug against the painting from the wall.

'A trip-wire. Fortunately, the power's out for the moment.'

Artemis gently detached the square patch connecting the painting to the wires in the wall from the back of the painting; he then removed the painting from the glass call.

 _2 minutes._

Butler quickly and efficiently detached the painting from the frame and transferred it into an expandable pneumatic glass case, which had previously looked like an innocent water-bottle.

At this point, thieves with less elan or pride would have simply placed a careful forgery into the frame and moved on with life. Not Artemis.

As Butler restored the now-empty frame to its former position inside the glass case, Artemis reached in and attached the security trip-wire patch to an adhesive on the back of a second smartphone. Butler brought up the bottom glass pane, and Artemis restored the four nails attached to the first smartphone to their original position. With a subtle "Whirr," the first smartphone vibrated, and the four nails instantly turned clockwise.

There were no signs that the glass pane had ever been breached, other than the missing painting.

 _1 minute._

The duo stepped back across the security cordon; Artemis returned the first smartphone and his night-vision iris-cam to the backpack, which also contained the painting.

While Artemis returned to his original position in the rabble, Butler bounded off with the bag, back to the Mona Lisa.

 _Time's up._

At the exact moment that the lights came on, the second smartphone attached to the wall activated with a "Whirr" and began projecting a holographic image of the Fairy Thief. So, as frantic security guards surveyed the cameras and tourists looked around bemused, nothing seemed to have overtly changed.

* * *

 **With Harry**

"And I thought there was a lot of gold in my vault," Harry muttered, drinking in the sight before him.

There were piles of coins reaching up to the ceiling of the Lestrange vault. Near the back of the vault, there were myriads of treasures - swords, exquisite paintings, medieval armor, piles and piles of books...

Harry stretched tendrils of his magic outwards and searched for a signature similar to the one in his scar. After a minute of questing, he finally found it and tugged on it with his will.

A golden cup endorned with a badger and a large "H" flew out of the piles of gold and into Harry's hands. Even as a dozen copies sprang out of his hand, and Harry cried in pain from the boils erupting around his fingers, he held onto it with all his might.

"Mission accomplished," he gritted out, and he threw the cup into his bag.

The trio did not get a chance to celebrate though as they heard a dull roar behind them; they exited the vault with great trepidation and saw a sea of raging goblins advancing rapidly towards them.

"They had to arrive ahead of schedule," Harry mumbled.

Unlike Harry and Elizabeth, Holly didn't waste time gaping at the goblins; it helped that she'd seen something similar before.

She grabbed hold of the pair's hands and dragged them towards the dragon, whose ears had perked up upon hearing the goblins' roars. "Get on!"

The trio clambered up the dragon's scales, onto its back. Harry began ringing the Clanker, hoping that it would induce the dragon to begin moving away from the vault.

Instead, it backfired, and the dragon roared in fear and agony, rearing up like a frightened horse; the trio nearly slid off but fortunately managed to retain a hold on its scales.

"Ok, that totally failed. Harry, can you enter the dragon's mind and point it towards the goblins?"

Harry nodded. "I can try."

"Err, not to go all Star Wars on you, but there is no try here. It's do or die."

Harry pushed as much magic as possible towards his eyes, and the world suddenly dissolved into a series of lights. He looked down and saw that the dragon's light was golden-orange - 'probably the same color as its flames.'

He had a flash of inspiration and looked for similarly-colored threads of magic around him; through the walls, he could see four, wait no five, others.

Inhaling sharply, he sent out his own green threads to the golden-oranges with a simple image - one of the goblins advancing towards them from the base of the Thief's Downfall.

* * *

Drogon missed the light and the air.

Ever since the goblins had blinded him as a hatchling, he had lived in darkness. As a creature of fire and air, he hated the stale air of the underground caverns in which he lived, along with the fact that he couldn't see the vivid colors of the world around him.

To make matters worse, he never knew when one of those vile creatures would come down those atrocious bells; when he had been younger, those bells meant flame-whips, lacerations, lightning-laced pikes, and various other tortures. Now, even if the bells weren't accompanied by any actual torture, the mere memory was enough to make him quail.

He had long given up any hope of exacting vengeance upon the goblins. How could he, when he was blind and chained and feared a stupid bell? Oh, how he had disgraced his mighty, fierce forefathers!

Then, out of the blue, he received an image in his mind's eye; he could _see_. Oh, he knew that he wasn't physically seeing anything, but still - how he'd missed the colors! The browns, the greens, the vault doors' and weapons' steel grays!

As the chains tying him down loosened, he let out a deafening roar. At last, here was a chance to attain freedom! At last, he could strike down his hated foes!

Drogon's joy increased exponentially as five other roars joined him in a chorus.

* * *

The trio barely held on as Drogon charged the goblin army, letting loose large, uncontrolled bursts of flame.

The goblins began screaming and striking the enraged dragon with their pikes, but Drogon had tasted freedom for the first time in centuries; he would either acquire liberty or die trying.

With a mighty swing of his tail, he swept scores of surrounding goblins into the pit around which the vaults were arranged. As they fell down screaming, they collided with several Inferi who were climbing upwards and took them back down.

The other dragons quickly joined Drogon near the pit; one of them actually stumbled into it but managed to stay aloft with its wings. The powerful bursts of air sent the waves of Inferi that were close to the mouth of the pit back down to the bottom. For good measure, the hovering dragon, which sensed the cold, vile energy emanated by the pit, directed a burst of fire straight into its mouth.

Harry was exhausted; he had managed to transmit his message to the dragons and unlock their chains. The rest was up to them now.

"Harry -"

"Five minutes," he mumbled back.

"Harry, I just need you to send out 1 more message. Tell the dragons to smash down the vault doors and lead the goblins inside. In the close space, they'll have to contend both with the vault's curses and the dragons' large mass.

The voice - Holly - paused. She added for good measure, "Think of it as a good prank on the Death Eaters. The combat will most likely end up destroying a majority of the contents of their vaults."

THAT woke Harry up. "Sure, why not?" he said grinning.

* * *

 **With Artemis**

"So, what did you think?" the prime vector (the first infected security guard) queried as Artemis was leaving the museum. Butler had already left 20 minutes ago, with 5 minutes left to spare before the Liquid Imperius expired, and the victims' bodies flushed it out without them being any the wiser.

"A truly enjoyable visit," Artemis replied wryly. "I was inspired by the works of genius surrounding me. I think that the field of art will see some of my best work."

"Looking forward to it, kid," the guard laughed.

* * *

Two days later, the battery of the smartphone attached to the wall expired, and the holographic image fizzed out and died. Simultaneously, using the last remaining bit of power, the phone exploded and sent pieces of glass shattering outward.

According to the footage from security cameras, it appeared as though the Fairy Thief had been incinerated by a bomb of some sort; investigators were puzzled by the fact that none of the tourists in the area were carrying any explosive material and that pieces of the glass pane had been launched _outwards_ , which implied that the explosion occurred inside it.

But that didn't make any sense, did it? After all, the painting was seen inside just mere moments before the mishap.

The entire affair seemed like magic, as absurd as that sounded.

* * *

 **With Harry**

Drogon roared as he began flying for the first time in centuries.

The air, the thrill of feeling the winds buffet his body - this was power! He was a god in the sky, and nothing could bring him down.

Numerous goblins valiantly tried to launch themselves off walls and land on Drogon's body, but he defied them by executing spins and turns in mid-air, zooming upwards past their shocked eyes.

* * *

The clerks continued to soldier on at Gringotts' front desk valiantly; the troops should be taking care of the intruders down below, and the Goblin Nation could then turn its attention back to subjugating the people and reuniting with their brothers down below. Yes, business was proceeding smoothly.

The iron doors between the lobby and the cart rails leading to the vaults exploded outwards. One angry dragon came barreling out, firing flames all over the place and killing a fair few goblins. Before it had even gotten to the entrance, it launched itself upwards and crashed straight through the stone ceiling of the bank, soaring into the sky with three small figures hanging onto it like limpets.

Even though the goblins and the awestruck wizards outside in Diagon Alley had lived around magic for all their lives and seen many feats of impossibility, to the point that they were almost laughably commonplace, this still took the cake..

The entire affair seemed like magic, as absurd as that sounded.


	6. Chapter 5: Landfall

Chapter 5: Landfall

 _Rapture,_ _1959_

"Wake up, Daddy. Please wake up! I'm so sorry for not coming with you. I promise you, I've broken the conditioning. Just wake up!"

The girl kept shaking the still body on the ground, but it didn't respond to her earnest pleas.

"Wrrrrrg" came a rumble from behind her, and the girl's world shifted instantly. Suddenly, there wasn't a a dead man on the ground - only a sleeping clown. Everything was fine, they could all go have tea and cake...

"NO!" the girl shouted, shaking her head furiously. Her father's death had broken through her conditioning and pulled her back to reality, and she would be damned if she let herself succumb to delusions once again. "The world is NOT full of pretty colors, clowns, and good food. I am not a princess in a tower with servants catering to me. Mr. Bubbles..."

She took a shuddering breath, fighting back the bile that was rising in her throat.

'Mr. Bubbles killed my father.'

"Wrrrg" - the noise was closer now. As the girl forcibly pulled her mind back to reality, she contemplated the gun on the ground by her father's corpse. Should she pick it up and finish off that monster? Her so-called protector had actually been her captor, after all; he wouldn't be happy to see her free.

Or maybe her prot...her captor DID care about her. Maybe he was conditioned just like she was. If so, she wouldn't have to be alone! She could have a daddy again! The very thought made her world seem brighter and happier again.

"WRRRRRRARRRRG!" A drill revved behind her, and the ground shook.

The girl turned around with wide eyes. "Mr. Bubbles..."

The behemoth just continued charging towards her, and she barely managed to jump out of the way.

"Mr. Bubbles! It's me. We've spent the last two years scavenging through Rapture together! Mr. Bubbles!"

The Big Daddy simply shook its head like an angry elephant and roared before charging towards her once again. It no longer emanated the warm, green-gold light that she had mistaken for the sun in her delusions; instead, angry red filled the room, expressing the creature's killing intent.

Again, the girl was extremely lucky and managed to sidestep the raging monster, ducking below the drill that it was wildly swinging at her head.

"I'm going to die, I'm going to die, oh god...," she whimpered when she stumbled on her father's body and fell to the ground.

The Big Daddy scented its prey's weakness and prepared to finish it off with one final charge. Fortunately, as the frantic girl lifted her head, her eyes caught a silvery gleam next to her father's belt.

 _Oh my god, ohmygod...Daddy, please help me. Please save me from this thing._

She grabbed hold of the silver ball and tossed it at the incoming mountain. It was too late for the Big Daddy to change course - not that it would have since someone had to pay for the disappearance of its Little Sister.

A brilliant explosion of sound and fury filled the room; the girl missed it as she had ducked her head into her father's chest immediately after throwing the grenade at the Big Daddy.

When the dust had settled, the girl lifted her head once again and saw one more body on the ground.

Once more, she was all alone.

* * *

 _Rapture, 1959_

"Dad, stay with me! Please, I'm begging you -"

The man lifted his hand to the sobbing girl's cheek gently; it halted midway as he drew his last breath and crashed down to the ground with a thud.

Once more, she was all alone.

* * *

 _Columbia, 1912_

"No, dad, no, no, no!"

The teen cradled the broken, bleeding figure of her father in her arms as the world around them dissolved into chaos.

She hatefully stared at the black-haired, blue-eyed lady leading a male away from the area (and dimension) through a tear.

Once more, she was all alone.

* * *

 _Mindoir, 2170_

"We're sorry about your loss, ma'am. The Alliance is offering a decent sum to help survivors of this vicious attack get back on their feet; just sign -"

"Keep your pittance," she spat out contemptuously and span on her heels, storming out of the War Office. The worst part was that there were no witnesses to attest that her father had died at the hands of a black-haired, blue-eyed human warrior, not the Batarians. Not that the Alliance would have ever admitted that one of its precious soldiers had committed a crime, even if she had somehow gathered the necessary evidence; even if it miraculously did, then it would discover that the suspect had long since vanished into thin air.

Once more, she was - She was done reacting.

* * *

 _Four years ago_

"I will not let you pass the threshold of this sanctum!" yelled the pale, elderly man in a swirling red cloak.

"You will try, I'm sure. Try and fail," retorted his opponent.

The elderly man quickly twisted his hands into a lotus-shaped mudra, and a beam of golden energy shot out; his opponent merely stood in place and swept his hands outwards, almost as though he were commanding the energy to split. And so it did.

But the elder was undaunted. Assisted by the fabled Cloak of Levitation that rested upon his shoulders, he launched himself into the air and whipped out blade-like air blasts at the opponent. Before the blasts could tear him apart though, the opponent mimed the creation of a glass box around his body, and the blasts dissolved around the invisible box, destroying the Ionic columns surrounding the pair.

The elder quickly shot back down to the earth and landed heavily, causing a shock-wave to emanate from the point of contact. Now, the opponent leaped into the sky and took to the air, twisting and sending out blasts of fire at the elder.

Given that the pair were evenly matched and that the opponent's emphasis on honor precluded deceit, this stalemate would have continued for much longer as the current state of affairs stood. Fortunately for the opponent, others were neither as honorable nor as patient as he was.

A crack rang out in the courtyard, and the elder turned around and held his palm out, effortlessly blocking the approaching bullet. Unfortunately, the startled opponent simultaneously lashed out at the elder with a whip of fire, under the mistaken impression that the elder was preparing yet another attack against his person.

Blood pooled onto the pristine floor tiles, and after a moment of silence, two thuds reverberated through the courtyard.

Dr. Stephen Strange, at the ripe old age of 150, was dead. His killer was none other than his erstwhile mentor and friend, Baron Mordo.

* * *

Mordo stared at the hooded woman warily.

"You should not have interfered. The duel was between myself and Strange alone."

"Pardon me, Mordo Rishi," the woman responded, bowing deeply at the waist. "I have been searching for you through space and time for a long while now, and in my joy at having finally found you, I overreacted to a perceived threat."

"Who are you? What do you want with me?"

"I am like you - a sorcerer and traveler. You and I both share the same aim - realigning magic with natural law. And for that, we also share the same methodology - bringing magicians to heel."

"There is a great disconnect between your words and your actions. I would never resort to _guns_ for all my rightful wariness of magic," Mordo sneered.

"Unlike you, Mordo Rishi," the woman replied calmly and deferentially, "I have been subjected to the depredations of those who care not for natural law." With that, she removed her hood.

For a moment, Mordo stared at the woman's face in horror, but he quickly composed himself. "Very well. I can understand why you would eschew magic as a whole then. If you would have me as your rishi, then you and I can work together to restore order and balance; in the process, I can teach you to tame your own magical skills."

"I would be honored to become your sishya, Mordo Rishi."

* * *

 _Three-and-a-half years ago_

The young woman had learned long ago that time was an illusion, and she applied that knowledge to its fullest. In due course, she and Mordo had eliminated over a thousand versions of Dr. Strange, all of whom were elderly and clearly past their prime.

"This is useless," Mordo said wearily one day, after they had defeated yet another elderly Strange. "We have defeated thousands of Stranges, but none of them are Strange in his prime as he is in my home universe. Unless we can defeat a Strange Prime, there is no way to prevent his faulty ideas about magic from spreading."

"Guruji, we could just kill him at birth or attack one of his younger, untrained versions," the woman piped up frankly.

Mordo's lips curled in disgust. "Do not ever make such a suggestion again; there is no honor in that. Strange may be misguided, but ultimately, he is an honorable man. As such, if we are to defeat him, we must do so righteously."

The woman stroked her chin thoughtfully. "My apologies, Rishi. On second thought, why are we even going after Strange? Our goal is to eliminate magicians from this world, so that natural law can be respected once more. Strange was corrupted by the Ancient One's example. Why not attack the first magician who violated natural law?"

"ALL magic violates natural law. At any rate, there will always be someone who will push the envelope and will eventually stray past what is acceptable. That is human nature."

"Well then, rather than attacking magic as a whole, why not focus on limiting magicians' capabilities first?" the woman suggested.

"What do you mean by that?" Mordo inquired.

The woman inhaled deeply and thrust her hand forward, almost as though she were shoving someone out of her way. Her form rarefied, and a second, transparent body appeared right next to it. Both started speaking concurrently.

"Right now, there are no limits on one's magic usage -"

"other than her own imagination and level of focus, -"

"and many magicians have plenty of both but possess little of the discipline -"

"necessary to apply them carefully, in a way that doesn't disrupt the flow of life."

At this point, the two forms fused, and the woman, once again whole, continued, "What I just did was an example of that. On a whim, I decided to split myself into two before expounding on my idea. It was absolutely unnecessary, but I could do it, and so I did. But -"

She paused and picked up a staff from a nearby table.

"if I had learned to only channel my magic through this staff, then there would be natural limits to what I can do."

Here, she held out the staff and tried to split herself once again, this time directing her magic through the staff rather than through her body itself. A wisp of amorphous smoke appeared for a few seconds on her left before vanishing.

"See!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "Sure, I could practice and perform rituals to enhance my connection to the staff and my staff-based capabilities. But where the imagination and the human mind have no limits, the staff does. I can only funnel so much energy into this dead piece of wood at any given time."

"What is your point, sishya?"

"My point, guruji, is that we should convince the first great magician, Agamotto himself, to utilize a staff or some other intermediary for performing magic. That way, all successive magicians will follow his lead and use staffs as well, never realizing that they could do so much more without them and thereby limiting the amount of damage that they can do."

"Brilliant, sishya! Let us put this plan into effect then."

The woman nodded excitedly and closed her eyes, searching through the innumerable dimensions for the right time and place.

 _A giant, metal bird swooping down on a fleeing pair, screeching its rage..._

 _A masked man blinking up behind a guardsman and choking him out..._

 _A man kneeling before a throne, pledging loyalty to Lord Veneficus the Eternal..._

 _The woman from the duo in the first dimension that she'd scanned again - black hair, piercing blue eyes, a look of determination as she led -_

With a snarl of rage, the woman opened her eyes again, shaking off any lingering threads to other dimensions. That woman, that...monster would pay for what she had done.

"Sishya, are you -"

The woman quickly composed herself and assumed her default, impassive mien. "My apologies, sishya. After a thorough examination, I have concluded that there are no openings to Agamotto."

As Mordo slammed his fist onto the table in frustration, she noticed a lingering thread. With a quirk of her lips, she seized it and took a look.

"But I might have found the next best thing..."

* * *

 _Three years ago_

The pair watched as Camelot burned.

On one side, Arthur and his loyal Knights were in the middle of a fierce campaign against his bastard son, Mordred, who had usurped the throne in Arthur's absence. On the other, Merlin tore apart golem after golem while Morgan Le Fay threw everything that she had at him from the middle of the golem army, from lightnings and earthquakes to illusions and phantom whispers of fear, defeat, and failure.

Magical creatures had not somehow escaped the throes of this conflict either. Multicolored flashes periodically lit up the sky like the Northern Lights as dragons and their human riders grappled with each other in the upper atmosphere. In the forests, centaurs had long since abandoned formation and were now shooting wildly at rampaging pixies and giants alike; the pixies bit and injected venom into any unsuspecting prey in their path while the giants roared and crushed the smaller beings underfoot. They had all fallen victim to the sheer miasma of Merlin and Morgan's magic, along with the arrant hatred pervading Arthur and Mordred's battlefield.

Magic was in pain and thrashed about wildly, seeking equilibrium.

"Look at them!" Mordo exclaimed in disgust. "We followed your suggestion and taught Merlin to channel his magics through the staff alone, so successfully in fact that even his foe, Morgan Le Fay, unquestioningly adopted his principles for learning and applying magic. Those two still haven't even dreamed of other ways of utilizing magic, but they've already done so much damage."

"This is still progress," the woman stated simply. To Mordo's incredulous look, she added, "Imagine how much worse this would be if they could do even half of what we could."

"You may have a point," Mordo grumbled.

"Our plan continues unabated. This conflict will destroy a good portion of magical tomes and records, but Merlin's core idea of using foci to direct magic will endure. Over time, we just need to reinforce the message."

* * *

 _Two-and-a-half years ago_

"We won the bet, fair and square, Death old chap! Now, do fulfill your end of the bargain, will you, hm?" the rotund, red-faced fellow boomed. His brothers, still shaken by the fact that they had, well, gotten the better of _Death_ of all people, simply nodded furiously in tandem.

Death let loose a shudder-inducing rattle, and two skeletal hands popped out from under the black, flowing robes. One hand held a shimmery cloak and ruby stone while the other contained a warped, black stick of elder.

"That's it! A bloody stick, a drape, and - oooh, shiny stone. Must be worth a good amount. I'll relieve you of that trinket, thank you very much."

The two remaining brothers glanced at each other and shook their heads. "For the life of me, I cannot understand why Father had to stick to primogeniture and bequeath all of his possessions to Antioch. I mean, this is Antioch - the idiot who bartered away a horse once in exchange for a pin made of fool's gold, so that he could flaunt it about on his chest," Cadmus mumbled disparagingly to Ignotus.

"What? What are you saying about me?" Antioch asked suspiciously. He knew that those two good-for-nothing rascals accompanying him were up to something. Did they want his precious stone? Over his dead body!

"Nothing, Antioch. Go play with your stone," Cadmus retorted. "Guess I'll take the stick then," he muttered before snatching it from Death's hand.

The final brother, Ignotus, who had been practically hiding behind Cadmus the entire time, timidly stepped forward and gently extricated the folds of the cloak from Death's other hand. Bowing deeply, he then scurried off, following in the retreating footsteps of his brothers.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO? HOW DID YOU DO THAT? Never mind, Cadmus - as the eldest, I should safeguard such a powerful weapon. Give me the stick," Antioch commanded after Cadmus had produced a fountain of wine after casually waving the stick about.

"You already have the stone, brother. The stick is mine," Cadmus retorted smugly.

"Why don't we -"

"SHUT UP, Ignotus," the two yelled in unison before resuming their bickering.

And thus began the legend of the Deathly Hallows.

Meanwhile, as the Peverell brothers' voices faded off into the distance, Death flicked a hand, and the illusion dispelled.

"My god, those three were giving me a headache," the woman groused, rubbing her forehead furiously. "Well, the stick should convince wizards to forgo staffs in favor of wands; after all, if a squib like Antioch could do magic with it, then what could a " - she rolled her eyes - " _proper wizard_ do with it?"

As for the stone and the cloak - well, they were useless trinkets anyway. The illusion magics on both should wear off within a day or two, but at least their possessors wouldn't have to fear for their lives like the owner of the "unbeatable" wand.

"Idiots."

* * *

 _Two years ago_

"This is a risky plan, sishya, even if we do not take into consideration the fact that you will be sacrificing your life in this process!" Mordo cried out to the young woman who he now looked upon as a daughter.

"We have never been closer to our ultimate goal of ending magic!" the young woman averred. "With this step, we can harness the power to effectively unify all of the realities into a single branch. At the convergence point, we can practically dictate the rules of the new, single reality, even to the point of abolishing magic altogether!"

"No! It is too risky, and I will not let you sacrifice yourself in a fool's endeavor."

" _Let_ me - guruji, this is my choice. We have worked so hard and so long to get to this point. The fact that Thanos, Strange, and countless other destabilizing influences no longer exist is a testament to the success of our approach so far!"

As Mordo opened his mouth to angrily deny her request, the woman hurried on, "Guruji, you know what magicians have done to me. These yellow eyes, which never blink and never permit me to get a moment of sleep or rest, and the poison running through my veins - they are an utter violation of my body and have precluded my ever living a normal life. At least, this way, I can ensure that my life has some meaning before I go."

She continued, "As it is, the poison's deleterious effects on my body have been accelerated through our inter-dimensional trips and general magic use. I only have a few more months to live, at any rate. At least, _let_ me die knowing that my death has bought us an unassailable advance towards order."

Mordo blinked away the wetness forming behind his rapidly blinking eyelids - Mordo, Sorcerer Supreme, did NOT cry.

"Go then, _Guruji_ ," he stated as calmly as he could. "Go with my blessings, and know that you have both my thanks and that of the universe as you depart this Earth."

So, the young woman marched off to meet her fate. That very night, she fell, and Lord Voldemort rose once more.

* * *

 _Now_

Pain blossomed in Mordo's side, and he coughed wetly, trying to spit out the blood forming in his throat. He stumbled through the halls of the sanctum, standing upright through sheer will alone.

But it was no use - a blast rocketed towards his unprotected back and spun him into the air. His body crashed through the corridor's brick wall and came spinning to a halt in the middle of the artifacts antechamber.

The Cloak of Levitation watched silently from the sidelines. Where it had once defended its erstwhile possessor and friend, Strange, from such a situation once before, it did not see the need to do so now, especially since the one on the ground had been Strange's killer.

Shadows gathered and congealed into the tall, serpentine form of Lord Voldemort, who sneered down at the battered Mordo. "Pathetic."

Face contorting in pure rage, Mordo pushed his entire will into raising his arm and firing off a blast of red energy, which would have incinerated Voldemort had it ever touched his body.

Voldemort simply formed red, glove-like shields around his hands and batted it aside, treating it like a minor irritant. He surged forward in the blink of an eye, intending to finish off his cornered prey.

But Voldemort had forgotten that such prey fight most desperately right at the brink of death. Mordo summoned every remaining scrap of energy and literally _burst_ , filling the room with a blinding flash of light.

"AAAHHHH!" Voldemort fell to the ground, screaming in pain and belatedly covering his now-damaged corneas. But he was no stranger to pain; he quickly remastered himself and sniffed the air, his forked tongue slithering out in hisses in complement to catch the scent of his evasive quarry.

"There you are," he murmured. Voldemort bent his knees, and the air rippled around his feet; a second later, with a sound like a gunshot echoing through the courtyard, the ground and air pushed him up thousands of feet into the sky, in a manner that trampolines could only aspire to.

A few miles away from the sanctum, motes of light coalesced with a tinkling noise into the bruised form of Mordo on top of a hotel roof. Mordo promptly fell to the ground on his back, overcome by his injuries and his last-ditch effort to escape Voldemort.

His rest was disturbed though, by a nudge near his feet.

Groaning, he looked up and saw the Cloak of Levitation insistently tapping its corner against his ankle.

"Ha! Now you choose to help me? Go away," Mordo gritted out.

The Cloak ignored his words.

"I said, go away!" Mordo bellowed, loosening a wave of fire at the cloak; the cloak remained unaffected though even as the nearby shrubbery was incinerated. In fact, it seemed to redouble its efforts and actually wrapped itself around his body in a manner reminiscent of a straitjacket.

"What are you doing? No, let go of -"

"Surely, I am not so boring that you want to play escaped-asylum patient, Mordo?" Lord Voldemort's sibilant hiss rang out in the air. Before Mordo could reply, Voldemort fired off a bolt of lightning at the downed figure.

In the blink of an eye, the cloak unwrapped itself from Mordo and repositioned itself right in front of his body like a shield; it effortlessly reflected the lightning back at its sender, and Voldemort barely managed to swerve out of the returning bolt's way.

Before he could even process what had happened, Voldemort suddenly had to fend off the thousands of red needles that the cloak was firing off. 'Are those its _threads_?'

With a pop, he apparated to the opposite side of the roof, and pointing with one hand at the cloak, he made a pulling gesture with his other hand. The cloak rocketed towards him, and Voldemort shaped the air around his hands into fine blades before beginning to spin like Superman.

But the cloak had heart and would not be denied. It had seen its last friend die and Mordo and that fool of his apprentice perpetrate countless atrocities. The world was weaker and poorer for the damage that the duo had dealt magic, and this was its final chance to rectify the situation, even if it meant defending Mordo of all people.

So, it collapsed to the ground like a carpet and swept the tornado-like figure of Voldemort off his feet. Startled, Voldemort could brace himself for the ride momentarily as the cloak dashed off the roof and carried its surprised passenger towards a nearby concrete building.

Shaking his head and thinking quickly, Voldemort rolled his hands and thrust them outwards in a pushing gesture. The rapidly approaching building began folding away from him, descending towards the streets. Pedestrians in the sidewalks below screamed in terror as they saw a building tumble down towards them; others, who were far enough away from the building but still within the general area, pointed to the duo in the sky with shouts.

Launching himself off the cloak (now flying carpet) with a taunting shout, Voldemort rocketed off in the opposite direction from the cloak as the building stopped descending and shot back up like a spring. It hit the cloak head-on.

For good measure, Voldemort pounded his fists together; the world became gray, and time slowed to a crawl. He maneuvered around an adjacent skyscraper and made another pushing motion. With a groan, the skyscraper slowly began sliding across the ground, parting the waves of pedestrians as though it were Moses, and they were the Red Sea. As it gained traction and loomed near the cloak that was flattened against the face of the concrete building, Voldemort made the sign of infinity and shaped out several other mudras; the glass in the middle of the skyscraper shattered into a million tiny pieces, and with the solidifed air, formed a long, fine-tipped needle.

As the world once again regained color, and time resumed moving at its normal pace, the cloak had just lifted itself off the concrete building when Voldemort's dagger ripped straight through its centroid. The dagger span rapidly, and the trillions of threads that comprised the cloak slowly unraveled and floated off into the morning sky in wisps of red and gold.

'Hmph! I never liked Gryffindor anyway.'

With that parting thought, Voldemort apparated back to the hotel roof where he had left Mordo. Fortunately for him, Mordo was still there.

"Why...are...you...doing this?" Mordo croaked. "WHY?!"

Voldemort looked down at Mordo coolly; he formed his fingers into a claw and swept his hand upwards, and a blue field formed around Mordo's body as it lifted off the ground. "Because I can."

'This is it. This is the end. I should never have agreed to my apprentice's request. I was a thrice-damned fool for thinking that I could control this man by holding her contribution to his rebirth over him and thereby bid him to our ends.'

As he accelerated towards Voldemort, Mordo closed his eyes.

"POW!"

The cloak was back - a raggedy, tattered thing, barely held together from Voldemort's onslaught, a few wisps had proven to be enough to regain some of its former integrity. And the first thing it had done was to shove aside Voldemort and catch the upright, zooming form of Mordo.

After it had caught him in a tenuous hold, the pair dashed off into the distance. Picking himself up instantly, Voldemort let loose a roar of rage and exhaled a plume of flames. "I will DESTROY that cloak! What does it take to kill it?" Once again, he launched himself into the skies and followed his quarry's trail in close pursuit.

Mordo turned his head and saw a figure garbed in black gaining on them. He was quickly forced to turn his attention back to the front though as the cloak spun in mid-air, nearly throwing him off.

"Watch it!" he spat out. Further reprimands died in his throat though as he saw the cause of the cloak's maneuver - the rapidly approaching head of a Basilisk.

Mordo felt his limbs freeze as he saw its eyes. Feeling the mounting urgency of the situation, the cloak clambered around his body and attached its extremities to his arms and feet, forming a makeshift wingsuit.

As the basilisk snapped and thrashed about wildly, knocking down buildings in the process and crushing people underneath, the cloak twisted and turned out of its way. It was trapped between the basilisk in the city and Voldemort in the skies though.

"There is another way," Mordo wheezed out, regaining control of his vocal facilities through sheer will.

Catching onto his thoughts, the cloak moved Mordo's slider hand accordingly, and a portal formed right in front of them. The pair shot through, and the last thing Mordo heard before blanking out was Voldemort's scream of rage as the portal contracted into a dot.

* * *

When Mordo opened his eyes, he felt... _content_.

He wanted to shake off the feeling. He was NEVER content; that emotion only lead to complacency and apathy, which in turn caused stagnation and ruin. No, discipline, focus, and unceasing _rage_ were the only useful things in life.

But he couldn't. As he sat upright and took in the verdant surroundings, he felt well. He swiveled his head and looked for the cloak, but it was gone.

'Heh. I suppose that now it was done saving the "lesser evil," it buggered off.'

"Daddy..."

Mordo bolted to his feet. "Show yourself," he shouted, forming fire blades with his fists. He was rested and ready for anything now.

"Daddy, it's me," a voice rang, and a girl stumbled out of the nearby bushes.

Bemused, Mordo dissipated his fire blades and crouched down towards the figure. "My sincerest apologies, little one, but I am not your father. Perhaps I can return you to him though. Who are you, and where are you from?"

"Daddy, don't you recognize me?" the girl responded petulantly, and Mordo gasped as she lifted her head and stared directly at him with her round, flashlight-like yellow eyes.

"You!" he shouted, eyes hardening. He grabbed the girl by the shoulders and shook her furiously. "How could you do this to me? Your plan backfired spectacularly, and you left me to deal with a madman!"

"I am sorry, Daddy. I am so sorry! I di..di..didn't mean to, I swear. It wasn't supposed to happen this way."

Whatever his faults, Mordo's heart melted upon seeing the little girl, a younger version of his apprentice and surrogate daughter, dissolve into tears. "I...I am sorry," he said heavily and released her, ashamed of his violent outburst.

The inconsolable girl continued crying though, and Mordo, wracked by guilt, reached out and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "I am sorry, I really am. We'll fix this, sishya, I promise you that."

"Promise?"

"I promi-"

A fist ripped straight through his heart, and a spray of blood and gore filled the air. Mordo jerked out of the hug ever so slowly and stared at the suddenly grinning girl in shock and disappointment. As his spirit rapidly fled his body, he lifted a hand to the girl's cheek and exhaled one word. "Why?"

The girl's macabre smile grew wider, and her figure rippled and shifted back and forth between her own form and that of Lord Voldemort. Till that moment, Mordo had only ever seen Lord Voldemort's lips from under the cowl of his robes. But now that he actually saw his face, he couldn't help but reflect upon the startling similarities between his visage and that of his erstwhile apprentice.

"Because I can," came the response, the sound a perfect mix of Lord Voldemort's sibilant hisses and the little girl's melodious voice.

As Mordo's corpse collapsed to the ground, Lord Voldemort stared dispassionately, poked it with his foot, and commented, "And because I must _,_ _Guruji_."


End file.
